News Brief
Weak Jobs Data And Tariff Shock Hit US Markets; Trump Blames Biden-Era Official for 'Faulty Numbers'
Wall Street (Representative Image)
After months of gains and brief calm, US stocks slumped on Friday (1 August) amid weak US labour market data and President Donald Trump's sharp new tariffs on major American trade partners.
The S&P 500 fell 1.6 per cent on Friday, wrapping up its worst week since April. The index dropped 2.4 per cent over five days—echoing volatility last seen during Trump's first tariff wave.
While markets gauged the impact of Trump’s new tariff move on business costs and consumer prices, it was a US Labour Department report that triggered deeper unease.
According to the US bureau of labour statistics (BLS), American employers added 73,000 jobs in July, fewer than the roughly 100,000 that economists had expected, and the unemployment rate rose slightly.
The report also revised down the data on hiring from May and June by a combined 258,000 jobs, suggesting the labor market was under greater strain than initially believed.
According to the BLS, the last time a revision was down more than 133,000 was in March 2021, when it was revised down by 146,000 one year into the COVID pandemic.
With the stock market slumping and his critics raising new questions about the efficacy of his economic policies, Trump publicly called into the question the veracity of the hiring data.
In a social media post on Friday afternoon, he blamed, without evidence, a Biden administration appointee in the Bureau of Labor Statistics for producing faulty numbers.
Trump took to his Truth Social platform and wrote, "I was just informed that our Country's 'Jobs Numbers' are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfar, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, who faked the Jobs Numbers before the Election to try and boost Kamala's chances of Victory. This is the same Bureau of Labor Statistics that overstated the Jobs Growth in March 2024 by approximately 818,000 and, then again, right before the 2024 Presidential Election, in August and September, by 112,000. These were Records – No one can be that wrong?"
"We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified," Trump continued.
"Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes," the president wrote. "McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the two prior months. Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative."
