Washington DC - President Donald Trump said Friday 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 emerging in the US jobs market.

US job growth missed expectations in July, Labor Department data showed, and revisions to hiring figures in recent months brought them to the weakest levels since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Trump lashed out at the department's Commissioner of Labor Statistics – Erika McEntarfer – after the report, charging that she had "faked" jobs data to boost Democrats' chances of victory in the recent presidential election.

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"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 wrote in a Truth Social post, referring to the latest data for July.

"Similar things happened in the first part of the year, always to the negative," he added.

But he insisted that the world's biggest economy was "booming" under his leadership.

The US added 73,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1%, said the Department of Labor earlier Friday.

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 levels in recent years. During the pandemic, the economy lost jobs.

The employment data points to challenges in the key jobs 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.

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Some are now passing them along partially to consumers.

"This is a gamechanger jobs report. The labor market is deteriorating quickly," said Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union.

She added in a note that of the growth in July, "75% of those jobs were in one sector: health care."

The US economy has added an average of just 35,000 jobs per month since May, data showed.

"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."

But it remains unclear when the dust will settle, with Trump ordering the reimposition of steeper tariffs on scores of economies late Thursday that are set to take effect in a week.

The president also raised tariffs on Canadian imports, although wide-ranging exemptions remain.