President Donald Trump is facing another economic setback, with newly revised jobs data showing the labor market is worse than initially thought.
The latest annual revisions from the Bureau of Statistics showed that employers created 911,000 fewer jobs for the year to March than previously suggested, in a blow to Trump’s claim that the U.S. has the “hottest” economy in the world.
The figures, which take in part of Joe Biden’s presidency, is the largest revision on record.
“We are in a rough economic situation right now,” said Spencer Hakiman, founder of Tolou Capital Management. “Hold on to your job, it’s going to get rough.”
The figures come one month after Trump sacked statistics chief Erika McEntarfer in response to weak job numbers, which did little to stem the decline.
But Vice President JD Vance doubled down on Tuesday, writing on X: “It’s difficult to overstate how useless BLS data had become. A change was necessary to restore confidence.”
While Tuesday’s revisions are not a full reflection of today’s conditions, as they go back to April 2024, data over the past few months has also pointed to slower growth.
Separate monthly jobs data published last week, for instance, showed only 22,000 jobs were added in August, well below expectations.
The unemployment rate rose to 4.3 per cent, the highest since 2021.
And revised data released last week also showed employers cut 13,000 jobs in June, the first time that has happened since the pandemic effectively stalled the economy in December 2020.
The latest data indicate that major markdowns are occurring in the retail, trade, professional services, and leisure and hospitality industries.
But in a silver lining, the economic slowdown strengthens the case for the Federal Reserve to begin slashing interest rates - something the Trump administration has been pushing for months.
“If the Fed had followed what we published, they would have raised rates in early 2021,” Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after the revised numbers came out.
“The entire Organization is broken. It needs to be fixed. They need to use modern sources of information.”
The data also comes as the accuracy of jobs data becomes a highly politicized issue in America.
In June, the president made a contentious decision to fire McEntarfer after accusing her without evidence of politically manipulating the numbers.
He then nominated Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni, a Project 2025 architect and fan of Nazi battleships, as her potential replacement.
Tuesday’s figures, which are the largest revision since 2002, are likely to add to concerns about the state of data collection.
They indicate that employers added nearly 76,000 fewer jobs per month than previously thought.
