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After a bad employment report in August, President Trump fired the official in charge of the numbers. This month’s data was just as disappointing.
Sept. 5, 2025, 3:56 p.m. ET
When the federal government last month reported a sharp decline in the nation’s hiring, President Trump dismissed the numbers, claiming without evidence that they were “rigged,” and then ousted the official responsible for producing them.
The release of a second consecutive poor jobs report on Friday confirmed the reality that Mr. Trump has been trying to avoid. The labor market is stalling — and the nation is facing real strains — under the weight of his economic agenda.
Eight months into his second term, the sum of Mr. Trump’s high tariffs and mass deportations appear to have created noticeable pressure on employers. The economy added only 22,000 jobs in August, according to the latest readout from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate rose slightly, to 4.3 percent, a nearly four-year high. And the revised data showed that employment fell by 13,000 in June, the first net loss of jobs since the end of Mr. Trump’s first term in office, when the pandemic was raging.
Analysts offered a variety of explanations for the slowdown. The president’s tariffs on nearly all imports have driven up costs for companies and prices for consumers. Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown has made it harder for many businesses to find workers, while simultaneously reducing the need for them because they now have fewer customers. The federal government has cut jobs directly and canceled grants and contracts that have bled into the private sector. The uncertainty surrounding Mr. Trump’s ever-shifting policies has made corporate executives more cautious about hiring and investing.
But those explanations all ultimately boiled down to one key factor. Mr. Trump, who regained control of the White House on promises of faster growth and lower prices, has established policies that are having precisely the opposite effect. Inflation data, due next week, is expected to show that consumer prices rose more quickly in August as companies increasingly pass along the cost of higher tariffs.
“We’ve got a private sector that’s caught in a pinch here between these higher cost pressures and reduced demand,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist for the consulting firm EY-Parthenon. “Both measures, whether it’s inflation or employment, are moving in the wrong direction. They’re moving toward a stagflationary environment.”
