'Devastating' New Jobs Report Shows Labor Market 'Cracking' Under Trump

A federal jobs report released on Friday showed the US economy added a mere 22,000 jobs in August in yet another signal of weakness in the US labor market.

Economists had projected the economy would produce 75,000 jobs on the month, which means that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) numbers released on Friday were well below the consensus estimate.

What's more, the total number of jobs created in July and June were once again revised downward, and the economy as a whole has added an average of fewer than 30,000 jobs over the last three months.

Heather Long, the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, put the bad jobs report in stark terms.

"The labor market is going from frozen to cracking," she said, and then pointed to net job losses in industries including mining, construction, and manufacturing that show significant stress in the blue-collar economy. In fact, the majority of job growth came from the healthcare industry over the last month.

"The US job market is almost entirely dependent on healthcare," she observed. "That's not healthy for the economy."

Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan, also said that the new numbers showed a continued deterioration in both the US labor market and the economy as a whole.

"I'm worried," he said. "The economy was in a good place in late 2024. That's no longer true. And the trajectory is, at a minimum, concerning. That's millions of people's lives, and millions of stories of pain."

Wolfers also zeroed in on the fact that manufacturing employment has been contracting for several months, despite US President Donald Trump's pledges to lead a manufacturing revitalization.

"But the Administration has made dramatic policy shift to boost manufacturing, and it just ain't working," he said. "Manufacturing employment fell [by 12,000 jobs], and is down [78,000 jobs] over the year."

Former BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer, whom Trump fired last month after he baselessly accused her of concocting negative job numbers to harm him politically, argued on Bluesky that the new report's downward revisions of previous monthly estimates are indicative of a labor market that is very quickly cooling.

"The larger-than-usual downward revision last month was in large part driven by a negative skew in the job growth distribution among late reporting firms," she said. "That's unusual, but it's happened before when the pace of job growth slows rapidly. This print is more evidence that was the case."

Mike Konczal, senior director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project and former member of President Joe Biden's National Economic Council, argued the new jobs report demonstrates that "the theory of Trumponomics is failing."

"The first theory of Trumponomics was that tariffs would build up manufacturing work and federal workforce cuts would free up workers for them," he explained. "That's failed. Manufacturing lost jobs almost as fast as the federal workforce (-12 vs. -15K)."

Konczal then showed how Trump's tariffs have hurt his stated goal of bringing back well-paying jobs for blue-collar men, as industries that produce such jobs have also been harmed by his tariffs on foreign goods and materials.

He also pointed out that Trump advisers claimed that mass deportations of undocumented immigrants would create new job openings that native-born workers would rush in to fill.

"But, you guessed it, that's also failing," he said. "Amidst the broader weakening, the native-born unemployment rate is at the highest levels since the pandemic."

Elise Gould, the director of health policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, similarly noted that "there have... been sustained losses over recent months in manufacturing, construction, and mining," in recent months, which she said was "an indication that Trump's blue-collar renaissance is clearly not happening."

Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the progressive advocacy organization Groundwork Collaborative, called the jobs report "devastating," while laying the blame at the feet of Trump.

"Trump's promises to working families have fallen flat," he said. "The unemployment rate is the highest in nearly four years, the economy has lost nearly 40,000 manufacturing jobs this year alone, and millions of workers are unable to find full-time employment. Families are getting fewer chances to secure the American dream in Trump's economy."

Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) reacted to the jobs report by issuing a scathing rebuke to Trump and his management of the economy.

"Donald Trump inherited an economy built on years of steady job growth," he said. "In just seven months, he's managed to screw it up—just like he's screwed up everything else in his life. Now, working families are getting squeezed from every direction: higher prices, Republicans' Big Ugly Law ripping health care away from millions, and a job market that's slowing down."