Trump Is Looking Beyond Today’s Sorry Jobs Report. But He Can’t ‘Wait Till Next Year.’

President Donald Trump (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)

“Wait till next year!” has been the clarion cry of every losing team from Little League to the NFL since legendary sportswriter Grantland Rice coined the phrase more than a century ago.

Add President Donald Trump to the list.

The economy added 22,000 jobs in August, far below the 76,500 forecast by economists. Besides the paltry hiring number, Friday’s jobs report is important for a couple of other big reasons.

One, it’s the first update by the Bureau of Labor Statistics since Trump fired the agency’s chief a month ago for what he called “faked” data. He leveled the accusation against former Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the BLS revised the May and June numbers, lopping off tens of thousands jobs.

The second reason, and likely more important reason, is that Fed Chair Jerome Powell has hinted any number of times that he’s more concerned about the labor market than inflation.

And these days the central bank is scrutinizing it even more as the country, from Main Street to Wall Street, wrestles with uncertainty ginned up by tariffs and a host of other policies.

On Thursday, Trump made clear he isn’t focusing on the current figures. Instead, he’s looking ahead to where his policies will take the labor market over the next 12 months.

“The real numbers that I’m talking about are going to be whatever it is, but will be in a year from now,” Trump told reporters at a briefing in the Oval Office.

“You’re going to see job numbers like our country has never seen,” the president added

On Friday, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick essentially parroted his boss. In an interview with CNBC, he promised jobs numbers “you never could have imagined” this time next year.

A labor market recovery would certainly be welcome.

The average gain of 29,000 in net new hires over the past three months is hovering at the lowest levels in 15 years, if the Covid era is excluded, and the headline unemployment rate of 4.3% is the highest since 2021.

Labor-force participation, which tracks the percentage of the population that works or is actively searching for work, is the weakest since 1977, when Covid data is stripped out.

And manufacturing jobs, which the administration has said it is creating through tariffs, have fallen by around 78,000 this year, including 12,000 lost last month.

August’s numbers aren’t the end of today’s story, either.

Next week, the BLS will report benchmark revisions to its job creation estimate for the 12 months ending in March. Economists see that recalculation reducing the overall total by as much as 750,000.

Government job cuts made through the president’s DOGE initiative, briefly led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, will start to hit payroll readings when the buyouts packages expire at the end of September.

“The ‘no hiring’ economy is turning into a layoff economy and if that worsens, it will lead to a recession,” said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “This needs to be stopped.”

The Fed probably will step up. Traders are pricing in a 100% chance of a rate cut when policymakers meet Sept. 16 and 17. And Wall Street has penciled in two more reductions before year’s end.

First, though, Trump, must be clear on his signature tariffs. Much of the clarity will come from the Supreme Court, which will decide whether Trump has the authority to impose sweeping tariffs.

But current levies that aren’t under dispute, as well as those in place during this monthslong legal challenge, could still wind their way into inflation readings. And the August CPI report comes out next week—Thursday.

“Concerns about the health of the economy are starting to creep in (and) a strong inflation print next week could strike new fears about a stagflationary mix,” warned Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.

Worries about the economy are real, with a slowdown in hiring, faster inflation, and tariff uncertainty.

If things keep going like they are, the White House needs a better response than “wait till next year!’

Write to Martin Baccardax at martin.baccardax@barrons.com