First Jobs Report Since Trump Fired Official Is Due

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to drop its latest jobs report on Friday, and there's more than usual riding on the numbers. This is the first report since President Trump abruptly fired the agency's commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, after an unexpectedly weak July jobs tally and sharp downward revisions to previous months. Trump accused the agency of cooking the books to make him look bad, but offered no evidence—while economists chalked up the big job number revisions to the usual reporting lags.

• Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal expect job growth to have hovered at a sluggish pace in August, with predictions around 75,000 new hires, just a hair above July's 73,000.

• A few sectors have been doing the heavy lifting—healthcare and social assistance accounted for the bulk of new hiring in the July report, while government layoffs continued to drag on the overall numbers. Immigration restrictions, however, are squeezing the labor pool, which is keeping the unemployment rate lower than it might otherwise be.
• The Federal Reserve is eyeing the job market closely, with Chair Jerome Powell citing labor market weakness as a possible reason to cut rates when officials meet later this month. Fed governor Christopher Waller, who voted for a rate cut in the last meeting, has said he's concerned the situation could unravel quickly.
• The economy has added around 85,000 jobs a month so far this year, down from 168,000 last year and around 400,000 during the post-pandemic hiring boom, the AP reports. "The labor market is showing signs of cracking," says Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. "It's not a red siren alarm yet, but the signs keep growing that businesses are starting to cut workers."

• Trump nominated a partisan loyalist, Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni, to replace McEntarfer. But with his nomination awaiting Senate confirmation, acting commissioner William Wiatrowski, a career Labor Department official, is overseeing the report. Last month, Antoni discussed publishing the jobs report quarterly instead of monthly, but the White House later said that wasn't his official position, the Journal reports.
• The BLS says this jobs report uses the normal methodology, a survey of around 120,000 employers. Revisions, like the ones that led to McEntarfer's firing, happen when employers submit data late or correct previous submissions. The proportion of companies that respond, however, has dropped from 60% a decade ago to around 40%, the AP reports.