Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick predicted that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ new jobs report Friday would be more accurate because President Donald Trump fired former Commissioner Erika McEntarfer last month.
Lutnick made that prediction less than an hour before BLS said job growth stalled out in August.
“I think they’ll get better,” Lutnick told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” after he was asked if people should believe the BLS’ numbers will be accurate.
That’s because “you’ll take out the people who are just trying to create noise against the president,” he said.
“The holdovers from the Biden administration” were “rooting against America and against Donald Trump, and that’s got to end,” Lutnick said in response to another question about whether the Trump administration now considers BLS credible.
“So he can’t replace somebody two weeks ago, and you expect fundamental change, but what you will get is an agency that’s on [Trump’s] side, just trying to do the best and put out the correct numbers,” he said.
Trump had fired McEntarfer on Aug. 1, hours after her agency reported that U.S. job growth had significantly slowed in July.
McEntarfer was appointed by former President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2024.
The latest BLS report showed nonfarm payrolls rose by just 22,000 in August, far below economists’ expectations for 75,000. The unemployment rate also ticked up to 4.3% for the month.
Trump, asked Thursday night if he could commit to saying that BLS’ upcoming jobs data would be credible, declined to do so.
“We’ll see what the, the number — I don’t know, they come out tomorrow,” Trump said.
“But the real numbers that I’m talking about are going to be whatever it is, but will be in a year from now” when the jobs data will “be absolutely incredible,” he claimed.
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