President Donald Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after the agency’s latest jobs report showed the economy’s slowest months of job growth since the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.

President Donald Trump’s acolytes are scrambling to rationalize his decision to fire the nation’s top labor statistician after she delivered a bruising reality check. Trump was confronted with a weak jobs report Friday showing just 73,

Federal government employment fell again in July, with a loss of 12,000 jobs, according to the report. The sector has lost 84,000 jobs since the start of the year. The report notes that employees who are on paid leave or are receiving ongoing severance pay are considered employed, and so are not included in this tally.