Fox Business — usually a reliable booster of pro-Trump economic talking points — is calling the latest jobs report brutal.
Only 22,000 jobs were added in August, falling far short of the 75,000 economists had forecast.
Worse, June’s numbers were quietly revised down by 13,000, wiping out any net gain and marking the first official job loss since late 2020.
Two major sectors took direct hits:
- Government jobs fell by 15,000.
- Manufacturing dropped by 12,000 — a red flag for blue-collar workers.
The unemployment rate climbed to 4.3% — the highest since 2021 — while labor force participation remained stuck at 62.3%.
Even Fox Business host Cheryl Casone didn’t sugarcoat it. “That 22,000 number — it’s weaker than expected, and these revisions are pretty brutal,” she said, according to Mediaite.
She wasn’t alone.
Charles Payne said the report may force the Fed to take a more accommodative stance: “It’s bad enough to require more support.”
Joanie Bily pointed to deeper concerns, highlighting job losses in key categories like professional services and temporary help — both of which tend to signal future economic slowdowns.
Even Kevin Hassett, President Trump’s chief economic adviser, conceded on CNBC’s Squawk Box that the latest jobs report was a “disappointment right now.”
Mediaite continues:
Hassett joined CNBC’s Squawk on the Street on Friday morning shortly after the latest jobs report dropped, showing the labor market continuing to cool down. Jut 22,000 jobs were added by employers in August, a drop from more than 70,000 in July and far less than the 70,000 additional jobs that were being predicted by some for August. Unemployment also ticked up to 4.3%.
The jobs report is the first to drop after President Donald Trump canned the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, accusing her of faking numbers, including in the disappointing July report.
On CNBC, Hassett admitted the latest numbers were not up to par while also claiming they could be revised down the road and encouraging people to look at the whole economic “portfolio” of the administration.
“This jobs number was certainly a little bit of a disappointment right now, but one of the things, there was a Goldman Sachs study that came out yesterday that showed that because the BLS hasn’t really done a good job on its seasonal adjustment in August, that they tend to revise this number up by almost 70,000 jobs when they give the revised number a month later,” he said.
Hassett further cautioned that headline employment figures can be misleading, since they don’t always reflect deeper shifts in investment or productivity. He pointed instead to what he called a “capital spending boom,” noting that private-sector investment in equipment, structures, and intellectual property has surged 8% in the first half of the year — “record growth,” he said.
With industrial production allegedly at an all-time high, Hassett argued the economy is entering the same kind of investment-driven upswing last seen during major corporate reform.
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