President Donald Trump on Friday lashed out at the official who oversees government employment reports after its regular monthly report showed the job market softening significantly this summer in a possible warning sign of an impending recession.

Trump said he ordered the immediate firing of Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, asserting the July report misrepresents what he claims is a “booming” economy powered by his policies.

“(McEntarfer) will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified,” Trump wrote on his social media site in a post that also criticized Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. “Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes.”

Wall Street shuddered with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunging by 543 points, or more than 1%, and the tech-heavy NASDAQ down more than 2%, after the jobs report said American employers added an anemic 73,000 new workers in July, less than the 113,000 economists had predicted.

More worrying, it dramatically revised down job growth in May and June, saying only a few thousand positions were added.

Trump derided the revisions as a “major mistake” and suggested they were “rigged” to damage him politically, even though they’re a routine part of BLS reports.

He claimed without offering any evidence that McEntarfer cooked the job report books in 2024 during the presidential election campaign.

“(She) faked the jobs numbers before the election to try and boost Kamala’s chances of victory,” Trump said.

McEntarfer was nominated by former President Joe Biden and confirmed by an overwhelming bipartisan 86-8 Senate vote.

The three-month employment trend paints a picture of a jittery economy as consumers, small businesses and corporate executives fret about the potential impact of Trump’s unpredictable trade war, along with other destabilizing policies like mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

The report came on the same day that Trump rolled out punishing tariffs on imported goods. After several delays, the levies will mostly go into effect on Aug. 7, although Mexico and China are getting a longer grace period to hash out new trade deals.

Trump’s stop-and-start trade war led some economic players to believe he would eventually drop or soften the plan, but those hopes appear to be dashed for now.

“A notable deterioration in U.S. labor market conditions appears to be underway,’’ said Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Markets. “This report highlights the risk of a harder landing for the labor market.’’

“We’re finally in the eye of the hurricane,” added Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor.

Trump has broken from decades of U.S. free trade orthodoxy to implement the unprecedented tariffs on almost all imports in hopes of incentivizing manufacturers to bring factories back to America.

He boasts of the rising government revenue stream from tariffs, which he portrays as payments from foreign rivals to Uncle Sam.

Mainstream economists warn that the cost of the tariffs, like any tax, are borne by American businesses and will be passed along to consumers. Prices have already started increasing on some products, although uncertainty over the tariffs has kept widespread increases in check for now.

But the dismal new jobs data could have one positive impact from Trump’s perspective.

Higher unemployment and perceived risk of a recession should put more pressure on Powell to lower interest rates when the Federal Reserve meets in September, a demand Trump has been making for months.

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