White House defends firing of labor official as critics warn of trust erosion

By Doina Chiacu and Jasper Ward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -White House economic advisers on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, pushing back against criticism that Trump's action could undermine confidence in official U.S. economic data.

Later on Sunday, Trump again criticized BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, without providing evidence of wrongdoing, and said he would name a new BLS commissioner in the next three or four days.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CBS that Trump had "real concerns" about the BLS data, while Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said the president "is right to call for new leadership."

Hassett said on Fox News Sunday the main concern was Friday's BLS report of net downward revisions showing 258,000 fewer jobs had been created in May and June than previously reported. 

Trump accused McEntarfer of faking the jobs numbers, without providing any evidence of data manipulation. The BLS compiles the closely watched employment report as well as consumer and producer price data.

The BLS gave no reason for the revised data but noted "monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors."

McEntarfer responded to her abrupt dismissal on Friday in a post on the Bluesky social media platform, saying it was "the honor of her life" to serve as BLS commissioner and praising the civil servants who work there.

McEntarfer's firing added to growing concerns about the quality of U.S. economic data and came on the heels of a raft of new tariffs on dozens of trading partners, sending global stock markets tumbling as Trump presses ahead with plans to reorder the global economy.

Investors also are watching the impact of the surprise resignation of Federal Reserve governor Adriana Kugler, which opened a spot on the central bank's powerful board and could shake up what was already a fractious succession process for Fed leadership amid difficult relations with Trump.

Trump said on Sunday he would announce a candidate to fill the open Fed position within the next couple days.

REVISIONS ARE COMMON

In an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation," Greer acknowledged there were always revisions of job numbers, "but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways."

Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, said large revisions of economic data could undermine public confidence and that government officials should develop ways of improving data quality.

"They can get this data, I think, other ways and I think that's where the focus ought to be: how do we get the data to be more resilient and more predictable and more understandable?" he said on CBS. "Because what bounces around is restatements ... that creates doubt about it."

Critics, including former leaders of the BLS, slammed Trump's move and called on Congress to investigate McEntarfer's removal, saying it would shake trust in a respected agency.

"It undermines credibility," said William Beach, a former BLS commissioner and co-chair of the group Friends of the BLS. 

"There is no way for a commissioner to rig the jobs numbers," he said. "Every year we've revised the numbers. When I was commissioner, we had a 500,000 job revision during President Trump's first term," he said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who worked in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, also criticized McEntarfer's firing.

"This is a preposterous charge. These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals," Summers said on ABC's "This Week."

LARGE REVISION

The BLS surveys 121,000 employers - businesses and government agencies - each month, seeking their total payroll employment during the week in which the 12th day of the month falls. The response rate has fallen sharply since the COVID pandemic, from 80.3% in October 2020 to about 67.1% in July.

Knowing that, BLS allows late-arriving employer submissions, and revisions to earlier submissions, to be taken into account over the next two months.

That means each month's initial estimate of employment for the immediately preceding month also contains revisions to the two months before that.

The revisions in Friday's report were large by historic standards. The downward revision of 125,000 jobs for May was the largest between a second estimate and third estimate since a 492,000 reduction for March 2020. That was the largest ever and was reported in June 2020 for the payrolls report for May 2020.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Jasper Ward, Douglas Gillison, Lucia Mutikani, Dan Burns and Daphne Psaledakis; Writing by Doina Chiacu and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Ross Colvin, Nick Zieminski, Chris Reese and Michael Perry)