04/08/2025

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Trump fires labour official over data Erika McEntarfer had “faked” jobs data to boost Democrats’ chances of victory in the recent presidential election. levels in recent years. During the pandemic, the economy lost jobs.

resources afforded to statistical agencies”. “Firing the head of a key government agency because you don’t like the numbers they report, which come from surveys using long established procedures, is what happens in authoritarian countries, not democratic ones,” said Larry Summers, former US Treasury secretary under Democratic president Bill Clinton. Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, said Friday’s jobs report was a “gamechanger”. “The labour market is deteriorating quickly,” said Long, noting that of the growth in July, “75% of those jobs were in one sector: health care”. “The economy needs certainty soon on tariffs,” Long said. “The longer this tariff whiplash lasts, the more likely this weak hiring environment turns into layoffs.” It remains unclear when the dust will settle, with Trump ordering the reimposition of steeper tariffs on scores of economies last Thursday, which are set to take effect in a week. – AFP Tesla ordered to pay US$242m in fatal Autopilot crash MIAMI: A Florida jury last week ordered Tesla to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to plaintiffs who blamed a deadly 2019 crash on the company’s “Autopilot” driver assistance technology. The jury found Tesla’s system partly responsible for a crash in Key Largo that killed Naibel Benavides Leon and injured her boyfriend, Dillon Angulo, according to attorney Darren Jeffrey Rousso, a partner at the law firm that represented Angulo and Leon’s family. The plaintiffs had alleged that Autopilot was to blame when driver George McGee’s Tesla careened into a Chevrolet sport utility vehicle, killing Leon and injuring Angulo. The jury awarded US$200 million (RM855 million) in punitive damages, plus US$59 million in compensatory damages to Leon’s family and US$70 million in damages to Angulo, according to court records. Since the jury assigned one-third of the blame to Tesla, the compensatory damages will be reduced, Rousso said, with the total impact of the jury award totalling US$242 million after these reductions. “Justice was done,” Rousso said. “The jury heard all the evidence and came up with a fair and just verdict on behalf of our clients.” Tesla will appeal the decision, according to its defence attorneys. “Today’s verdict is wrong and only works to set back automotive safety and jeapordise Tesla’s and the entire industry’s efforts to develop and implement life saving technology,” Tesla said through its legal team. “The evidence has always shown that this driver was solely at fault because he was speeding, with his foot on the accelerator – which overrode Autopilot – as he rummaged for his dropped phone without his eyes on the road,”Tesla said. “To be clear, no car in 2019, and none today, would have prevented this crash. “This was never about Autopilot.” – AFP

o US president claims numbers rigged as cracks emerge in jobs market WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said last week he has ordered the firing of a key economic official, accusing her of manipulating employment data for political reasons after a new report showed cracks in the US jobs market. US job growth missed expectations in July, Labour Department data showed, and revisions to hiring figures in recent months brought them to the weakest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic. Without providing evidence, Trump lashed out at the department’s commissioner of labour statistics, writing on social media that the jobs numbers “were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad”. In a separate post on his Truth Social platform, he charged that Commissioner

The employment data points to challenges in the key labour market as companies took a cautious approach in hiring and investment while grappling with Trump’s sweeping – and rapidly changing – tariffs this year. The numbers also pile pressure on the central bank as it mulls the best time to cut interest rates. With tariff levels climbing since the start of the year, both on imports from various countries and on sector-specific products such as steel, aluminum and autos, many firms have faced higher business costs. Some are now passing them along to consumers. William Beach, who previously held McEntarfer’s post at the Bureau of Labour Statistics, warned that her firing “sets a dangerous precedent and undermines the statistical mission of the bureau”. The National Association for Business Economics condemned her dismissal, saying large revisions in jobs numbers “reflect not manipulation, but rather the dwindling

“McEntarfer said there were only 73,000 Jobs added (a shock!) but, more importantly, that a major mistake was made by them, 258,000 Jobs downward, in the prior two months,” Trump said, referring to latest data for July. “Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative”, the president said, insisting that the world’s biggest economy was “booming” under his leadership. He later told reporters “we need people that we can trust”, accusing the economic official of inflating hiring figures under former president Joe Biden’s administration. The United States added 73,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1%, said the Department of Labour last week. Hiring numbers for May were revised down from 144,000 to 19,000. The figure for June was shifted from 147,000 to 14,000. This was notably lower than job creation

Kugler speaking to The Economic Club of New York. – REUTERSPIC

Fed governor resigns at critical time for central bank WASHINGTON: US Federal Reserve governor Adriana Kugler is resigning from her position, the central bank said, opening a vacancy that President Donald Trump can fill as he presses his campaign to drop interest rates. Trump said last week on social media that “Powell should resign” just as Kugler did. The US president previously suggested that what he says is an overly costly renovation of the Fed’s headquarters could be a reason to oust Powell, before backing off the threat. ranging and fluctuating tariffs on inflation. They expect to have a better gauge of the duties’ effects after data from the summer months, given that tariffs take time to filter through the economy.

But Trump has pushed for interest rate reductions, and for the benchmark lending rate to be lowered by as much as three percentage points. Earlier on Friday, Trump touted the fact that two Fed governors voted against the central bank’s Wednesday decision to keep rates unchanged again. He said on social media: “STRONG DISSENTS ON FED BOARD. IT WILL ONLY GET STRONGER!” He also called Powell a “stubborn moron” and said the Fed’s board should “assume control” if Powell continued to support holding rates steady. Kugler is expected to return to Georgetown University as a professor this year, the Fed said. – AFP

Kugler, who was nominated by former president Joe Biden in 2023, did not give a reason for stepping down from the Fed’s board. Her term was due to end in January 2026, but her departure – effective Aug 8 – gives Trump the chance to appoint someone new to the Fed sooner than anticipated, shaping its leadership. Trump said he was “very happy” about the upcoming vacancy, after Kugler submitted her letter of resignation to him. The personnel shift comes as the Fed faces intensifying pressure under Trump, who has repeatedly criticised the central bank’s chief Jerome Powell for not lowering interest rates sooner.

Powell’s term as Fed chair ends in May 2026. Kugler did not attend the Fed’s two-day policy meeting last week due to a personal matter, and did not vote on its decision. In a mid-July speech, she made the case for holding rates at the current level for some time, citing inflationary pressures and relatively low unemployment levels. “It has been an honour of a lifetime to serve on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System,” Kugler wrote in her resignation letter. Federal Reserve policymakers have approached further rate cuts with caution – since their last reduction in December – as they assess the impact of Trump’s wide