Bet on the Fed — not firings — to support jobs growth

In August, after the release of the July jobs report — which drastically revised down previous months’ numbers — U.S. President Donald Trump accused then Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of manipulating data, and fired her.

Yesterday, the BLS announced that the U.S. economy had added 911,000 fewer jobs than previously reported, for the year preceding March 2025. “Downward revisions since the cutoff date in that report suggest that the reduction in payroll growth has been actually around 1.2 million for the past 16 months,” wrote CNBC’s Jeff Cox.

That’s a big and scary number. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase — America’s biggest bank — in a reaction to the most recent report, said “the economy is weakening. Whether it’s on the way to recession or just weakening, I don’t know.”

Traders in the futures market now see an increased chance of cuts — which could support jobs creation — at each of the Fed’s next three meetings this year, according to the CME FedWatch tool. That’s assuming no more Fed officials are fired, which could change the trajectory of monetary policy for the next few years. Only they, and not the BLS commissioner, have the power to directly sway the U.S. labor market on such a macroscopic level.

Europe’s problems are mounting, and it’s struggling to fix them

From finding its place in the global world order to wrangling business competitiveness, Europe is facing a growing spate of challenges it’s struggling to address, political and business leaders told CNBC on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum.

Political advisor and former German State Secretary Markus Kerber described Europe as “a bit like the rabbit in the headlight” — and said the continent was struggling with the breakdown of the long-standing global rules-based system and order.

— Sophie Kiderlin and Holly Ellyatt