PinnedUpdated Sept. 5, 2025, 5:44 a.m. ETA jobs fair in Florida in June. As the Trump administration pulls economic policy levers, including tariffs and federal spending, incoming data can be difficult to interpret.Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesAfter the shock of last month’s downward revisions to job growth, even more attention than usual is focused on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employment report for August, ahead of a pivotal meeting at which the Federal Reserve is expected to drop interest rates after a nine-month hiatus.Until this spring, the labor market was the economy’s greatest source of strength, as low joblessness powered consumer spending. In recent months, while not collapsing, hiring appears to have shifted into a lower gear. And as the Trump administration rapidly pulls economic policy levers, including tariffs and federal spending, incoming data can be difficult to interpret.On average, analysts polled by Bloomberg expect that employers added 75,000 jobs in August. That would be around what economists call the “break-even rate,” or the number of jobs required to employ everybody entering the labor force.That number has decreased since the Trump administration began its multifaceted campaign to shift the flow of immigration into reverse. With fewer people available to work, the unemployment rate has remained steady, rather than escalating like it historically does after bottoming out.The balance is tenuous, however. Although there’s no evidence of rapidly mounting layoffs, in July the number of unemployed people surpassed the number of available jobs for the first time since the spring of 2021. Job openings have fallen sharply for two months in health care, which has been the main industry driving growth over the past year.Also in the labor market weakness column: data from the payroll provider ADP, which showed just 54,000 private-sector jobs were added in August. Since the public sector most likely shed jobs last month as the Trump administration continues to fire people, the total number could be lower.Both businesses and workers are starting to feel it. The difference in the share of consumers in Conference Board surveys who say jobs are “plentiful” versus “hard to get” is at its lowest level since early 2021. In the monthly survey by the National Federation of Independent Business, executives say they’re having an easier time filling open roles and are less likely to raise pay.At this point, wages may start to lag behind price growth again, which could slow spending.“Households are low confidence, and they’re especially low confidence in relation to their employment situation,” said Christopher Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence. “While they think inflation is going to rise, they’re worried about their jobs, so that wage bargaining power just isn’t there at the moment.”Sept. 5, 2025, 5:44 a.m. ETAfter the previous monthly jobs report showed weakness in the labor market, President Trump fired the head of the agency that produces the data.Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesWhen last month’s jobs report showed unexpected weakness in the labor market, President Trump fired the head of the agency that produces the data and named a loyalist to run the department that produces those numbers.That has prompted a natural question ahead of Friday’s jobs report: Can this month’s numbers be trusted?The answer, according to economists and experts in government statistics, is yes — but with all the same caveats that always apply to the data.Economists across the political spectrum have criticized Mr. Trump’s decision to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, and his choice to replace her. The president tapped E.J. Antoni, a conservative economist with a history of distorting statistics to support his political arguments.Mr. Antoni has not yet been confirmed by the Senate — Mr. Trump didn’t even formally nominate him for the position until Wednesday — so he isn’t yet in charge of the agency. In the meantime, it is being run by its deputy commissioner, William J. Wiatrowski, who served as acting commissioner twice before.Erica Groshen, who led the bureau under President Barack Obama, described Mr. Wiatrowski as a “B.L.S. lifer” who is committed to the agency’s mission of producing statistics that are free of political influence. She and others who know him said they were confident that he would speak up — or resign — rather than allow anyone to interfere improperly in the agency’s work.In any case, Ms. Groshen and other experts said, even a commissioner with ill intentions would not be able to meddle with the data, at least not in the short run and not without anyone’s noticing. The monthly jobs report is produced on a tight schedule using a highly automated and decentralized process. Most of the data that underlies the monthly payroll figure is reported directly by companies through an electronic system that is subject to strict access limitations. The commissioner, who is the agency’s only political appointee, does not have access to the numbers until they have been made final.“There’s not like one person in a room who can manipulate things,” said Aaron Sojourner, an economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. “There are safeguards in place.”Mr. Sojourner did add a note of caution. He said he trusted the data “for now” but worried that Mr. Antoni, if confirmed, could undermine the agency’s reputation for objectivity. And even before then, Mr. Trump could continue to attack the agency in ways that erode its credibility with his supporters.While the raw numbers may be free from political influence, it is still wise to take them with a grain of salt. The August employment figure that will be released on Friday morning is a preliminary estimate and will be revised twice as data arrives from businesses that missed the deadline for the initial report.Those revisions can be substantial, as last month’s report demonstrated: The agency lowered its estimates for employment growth in May and June by a combined 258,000 jobs.Other recent revisions haven’t been as large, but they have been consistently downward. Historically, that has often been a sign that the economy was losing momentum, or even entering a recession. But some economists have suggested that the recent trend could be the result of other factors, including shifting patterns in seasonal hiring.Next week, the bureau will release a preliminary estimate of its “benchmark revisions,” an annual practice in which the monthly estimates, which are based on surveys, are reconciled with more accurate but less timely data from state unemployment insurance offices. Most forecasters expect that report to show that the surveys significantly overstated employment for the second year in a row.Economists have grown increasingly concerned in recent years that declining survey response rates and shrinking agency budgets could be eroding the reliability of the nation’s economic data. But they say there is little evidence that aggregate measures like the monthly payroll totals and the unemployment rate have become less reliable. Indeed, revisions have become smaller over time.“It’s an estimate — it’s not perfect,” Mr. Sojourner said. But “it’s the best information available,” he added. “It’s very valuable.”Sept. 3, 2025, 1:15 p.m. ETConocoPhillips said it would cut up to 25 percent of its global work force by the end of the year.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIn the last couple of years, the largest U.S. oil companies gobbled up smaller ones. Now, contending with persistently mediocre oil prices, those giants are laying off many workers in hopes of squeezing more fuel from the ground at lower cost.The latest is ConocoPhillips of Houston, which said on Wednesday that it would cut up to 25 percent of its global staff, or as many as 3,250 people, most of them this year. The company employs around 13,000 people, including contractors.“We are always looking at how we can be more efficient with the resources we have,” Dennis Nuss, a company spokesman, said in a statement.ConocoPhillips’s announcement, reported earlier by Reuters, comes almost a year after it closed a $17 billion acquisition of Marathon Oil, which was part of a deal-making spree in the U.S. oil patch. Companies often lay off workers after making big purchases.The layoffs reflect a nuance in how the Trump administration’s overhaul of American energy policy is rippling through fossil fuel companies. While the sector has secured many policy wins this year, from promises of speedier permitting to more frequent lease sales and relaxed emissions regulations, many of those changes will take years to lift profits.What affects the companies today is the price of oil and natural gas. And while gas prices have recovered from record lows in 2024, oil prices have been just OK. Crude now fetches roughly $64 a barrel in the United States and has traded in that ballpark for most of the year. That is enough for most companies to make money drilling new wells, but a lot lower than companies grew accustomed to in the last few years. U.S. oil prices averaged about $77 a barrel in 2024.Lower oil prices have hurt profits, which fell 15 percent year over year at ConocoPhillips, to $2 billion in the second quarter. Earnings also dropped at other large oil companies.Chevron, the second-biggest U.S. oil company, announced plans this year to lay off up to 20 percent of its work force at the time, which would amount to around 9,000 people. Other companies have pursued smaller reductions.The recent downsizing at big oil and gas companies does not yet appear to be making a big dent in how many people work in the sector overall. The oil and gas services sector, which tends to be the most cyclical part of the industry, employed 2 percent fewer people in June compared with a year earlier, federal data show. Pipeline construction jobs, on the other hand, have grown.Examined over a longer time horizon, though, the American oil and gas industry has been shrinking, even as it has pushed production to record highs.ConocoPhillips’s stock price was down more than 4 percent Wednesday afternoon, outpacing losses across the rest of the industry.Aug. 18, 2025, 3:47 p.m. ETNoam ScheiberNoam Scheiber writes about workers and the workplace.Job seekers chat with potential employers at a job fair in Sunrise, Fla. Credit...Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesWhile the job market remains solid and the overall unemployment rate is low, there are signs of weakness, like the growing percentage of people who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer.Other indicators, like elevated joblessness for recent college graduates and falling employment for entry-level software engineers, tell a similar story.I’ve been covering the impact of these trends and am focusing on the financial and psychological toll of being unemployed for long stretches, as well as the steps that people are taking to find new jobs.If you are in this position, I’d like to hear from you.I’ll read every response and won’t include your name in a story unless I have contacted you first and gotten permission. I won’t share your contact information outside our newsroom.