Hiring stalls with US companies reluctant to expand in an uncertain economic landscape

When the department put out a disappointing jobs report a month ago, an enraged President Donald Trump responded by firing the economist in charge of compiling the numbers and nominating a loyalist to replace her.

Talking to reporters Thursday night at a dinner with wealthy tech executives, Trump had seemed to shrug off whatever hiring numbers would come out Friday. “The real numbers that I’m talking about are going to be whatever it is, but will be in a year from now,’’ the president said.

Factories shed 12,000 jobs in August, the fourth straight month that manufacturers have cut payrolls. Construction companies cut 7,000 jobs, and the federal government 15,000.

Labor Department revisions cut 21,000 jobs off June and July payrolls and revealed that employers had actually cut 13,000 jobs in June, the first monthly job losses since December 2020.

The U.S. job market has lost momentum this year, partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the Fed’s inflation fighters ve in 2022 and 2023 and partly because Trump’s policies, including his trade wars, have created uncertainty that leaves managers reluctant to make hiring decisions.

“The warning bell that rang in the labor market a month ago just got louder,’ Olu Sonola, head of U.S economic research at Fitch Rates, wrote in a commentary. "It’s hard to argue that tariff uncertainty isn’t a key driver of this weakness.”

Workers' average hourly earnings rose 0.3% from July and 3.7% from August 2024, exactly what forecasters expected. The year-over-year figure is nearing the 3.5% that many economists see as consistent with the Federal Reserve's 2% inflation target.

The weak numbers make it all but certain that Federal Reserve will cut its benchmark interest rate at its next meeting, Sept. 16-17. Under chair Jerome Powell, the Fed has been reluctant to cut rates until it sees what impact Trump’s import taxes have on inflation.

Trump has repeatedly pressured Powell to lower rates, and has sought to fire one Fed governor, Lisa Cook, over allegations of mortgage fraud in what Cook claims is a pretext to gain control over the central bank.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits — a proxy for layoffs — rose last week to the highest level since June, though the number of claims remained within a healthy range.

The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said Wednesday that U.S.-based employers have announced more than 892,000 jobs cuts this year through August, more than the 761,000 reported for all 12 months of 2024.

After seeing the weak July jobs numbers, Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, baselessly claiming the hiring report had been rigged to hurt him politically.

He has nominated a partisan idealogue, E.J. Antoni, to replace her. But for now, pending Antoni’s confirmation by the Senate, the jobs report is in the hands of the acting BLS commissioner, William Wiatrowski, a career Labor Department official.

Economists and others familiar with how the jobs numbers are collected have expressed confidence that Labor Department procedures will keep the data are safe from political interference.

The revisions are standard practice, and necessary because many companies surveyed by the government submit their responses late or correct what they’ve already sent in.

Government economists are also contending with a big drop in the share of companies that respond to the surveys. A decade ago, about 60% of companies surveyed responded. Now only about 40% do.

And it’s an international problem for data collectors, especially since COVID-19. The United Kingdom even suspended publication of an official unemployment rate because of inadequate responses.

“I remember being at an international conference where the chief statistician of the Russian Republic was complaining about how the Russians don’t want to complete their surveys,” William Beach, BLS commissioner from 2019 to 2023, said in an interview last month. “What could he do? If you can’t compel completion in Russia, you can’t compel it anywhere.’’