Trump Fires BLS Chief. He’s Missing the Real Reason for the Big Change in Jobs Numbers.

President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing ceremony in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on July 31, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump said that he ordered his team to fire Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, accusing her of releasing inaccurate employment data. But swings in the monthly jobs numbers and subsequent revisions are nothing new.

“I was just informed that our Country’s “Jobs Numbers” are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics,” Trump wrote in a social media post Friday afternoon. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.”

The order comes hours after the BLS published its monthly release of employment data, which includes a count on the number of jobs added by employers over the course of the month, as well as the official unemployment rate, among other key labor statistics.

The BLS reported this morning that the U.S. added 73,000 jobs in July and revised lower the payroll gains for May and June by 258,000. It was the largest revision of data across two months going back to 2013, not counting revisions during the volatile 2020 Covid-19 pandemic era. Much of the May and June revisions were driven by updates to government payrolls and some seasonal moves in education workers.

Trump called the revisions a “huge mistake” and said that “similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative.” There have been both positive and negative revisions throughout this year. It is common for the payrolls numbers to be revised multiple times during the year

Trump said he was ordering the dismissal because employment data “must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.” He didn’t provide evidence to support those accusations.

McEntarfer didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The BLS commissioner typically holds the position for four years, unless removed, according to federal statutes. Unlike the Federal Reserve, an independent agency that controls its own funding, the BLS is housed within the Department of Labor, allowing for agency heads to be removed from office before the end of their term.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer wrote on social media Friday that she agreed “wholeheartedly” with Trump. “A recent string of major revisions have come to light and raised concerns about decisions being made by the Biden-appointed Labor Commissioner,” Chavez-DeRemer wrote. “I support the President’s decision to replace Biden’s Commissioner and ensure the American People can trust the important and influential data coming from BLS.”

Chavez-DeRemer noted that Deputy Commissioner William Wiatrowski will serve as acting commissioner during the search for McEntarfer’s replacement.

Leading economic organizations derided the termination on Friday, calling Trump’s attack “baseless” and merely attempting to shift the blame for unwelcome economic news.

“This rationale for firing Dr. McEntarfer is without merit and undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics that are a cornerstone of intelligent economic decision-making by businesses, families, and policymakers,” reads a statement released by the Friends of the BLS, a partnership between the American Statistical Association, Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness, Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, and the National Association of Business Economics.

The organization added that politicizing the work of the agency and its workers does a “great disservice” and called on Congress to respond immediately.

McEntarfer was nominated for the role of commissioner by President Joe Biden in July 2023 and confirmed by the Senate in January 2024. She was confirmed 86-6, including 38 Republican votes. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., and Vice President JD Vance both voted for her.

McEntarfer spent 20 years in the federal government, serving in positions at the U.S. Census Bureau, the Department of Treasury, and on the Council of Economic Advisers.

To produce the monthly payroll growth metrics, the BLS uses the establishment survey, also known as the payroll survey, to collect responses from approximately 121,000 businesses and government agencies. The bureau publishes an initial preliminary estimate of employment, hours, and earnings on a monthly basis typically on the first Friday of the succeeding month.

Estimates are then revised twice more, as additional responses and information becomes available, before undergoing an annual benchmarking process. This year, the BLS will release the preliminary benchmark revisions to establishment survey data on Sept. 9 at 10 a.m. Eastern.

While the size of May and June’s revisions was surprising, there are non-political reasons for the wide swings. Economists have warned for years that declining initial response rates from employers, for instance, could create more volatility within the employment data.

“While we have for the better part of the past two years been pointing to low initial collection rates to the BLS’s establishment survey as diminishing the reliability of the initial estimate of job growth in any given month, we’ve yet to see revisions on the order of those reported today,” Regions Financial chief economist Richard Moody wrote following Friday’s report.

There was certainly noise from routine seasonal adjustments to the data, but Moody said that the pullback on the number of private sector jobs added over the May and June period also likely reflects the establishment survey data aligning better with the household survey data, which yields the unemployment rate.

The July payroll numbers are only a preliminary estimate. The response rate to the July payroll survey was 57.6% versus an average of 72.4% for July in the previous 10 years, write the economists at Brean Capital. That indicates that revisions to this data are likely in coming months.

In addition to the monthly employment data, the BLS is responsible for producing a wide swath of economic indicators, including the monthly inflation gauge, the consumer price index, and a wholesale price growth measure called the producer price index. The statistical agency also puts out quarterly economic datasets such as the employment cost index and labor productivity growth.

Write to Megan Leonhardt at megan.leonhardt@barrons.com