Business

Donald Trump fired Erika McEntarfer as head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics, alleging, without evidence, that her department was manipulating employment figures to make his administration look bad. The BLS’s monthly jobs survey is watched closely by investors. Its report for July recorded 73,000 new jobs in the month, but it also revised down the estimate for May and June by a whopping 258,000, making those months the lowest for job creation since the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Economists are still trying to work out why the revision was so large. They also worry that Ms McEntarfer’s sacking will undermine the credibility of future federal statistics.