The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics cut its estimates of job creation for May and June by a combined 258,000 positions, revising May payroll growth to 19,000 from 144,000 and June to 14,000 from 147,000. Morgan Stanley said the magnitude of the changes is four to five times the median monthly revision since 1979; Goldman Sachs called it the steepest two-month downgrade since 1968, excluding the pandemic. The updated figures add to evidence that the labour market is losing momentum. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing employment gauge fell to 43.4 in July, the lowest level since the Covid-19 trough in 2020 and, outside that period, the weakest since the 2008–09 crisis. Separately, private-sector job openings dropped by 325,000 in June, pushing the openings rate down to 4.6 percent, below its pre-pandemic range. Economists attribute the outsized revisions to declining survey response rates and limited resources at the statistical agency. “It’s not that BLS is cooking the books; it’s that BLS is being cooked,” said David Hiles, a former senior BLS economist, citing the growing use of imputation to fill data gaps. Confidence in the data was further shaken when President Donald Trump dismissed BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the revisions were released, alleging without evidence that the numbers were politically manipulated, Reuters reported. The International Monetary Fund cautioned that it depends on countries to furnish reliable statistics, underscoring the risk that political interference could erode the credibility of information that guides Federal Reserve policy, business investment and financial markets.