Between the “everything will be fine” economic scenario and the “just wait and see” warning, the latter gained traction with the publication of US employment figures on Friday, August 1: The results were bad – frankly, very bad.
To start, the country created only 73,000 jobs in July − far below the 100,000 expected by the markets. In addition, job creation for May and June was significantly revised downward; instead of adding a combined 258,000 jobs over those two months, the country created just 19,000 and 14,000 jobs − not even a total of 35,000. The unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 4.2%. “This is a gamechanger jobs report,” wrote Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, on X. “I’ve been calling this a ‘Frozen’ job market for awhile. Now I would call it a red flag. The economy is barely adding any jobs,” wrote the economist, capturing the general mood.
Donald Trump disputed the numbers on his social network, Truth Social: “I was just informed that our Country’s ‘Jobs Numbers’ are being produced by a Biden Appointee, Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics (…). We need accurate Jobs Numbers. I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY. (…)The Economy is BOOMING under ‘TRUMP,’” the president complained.
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