Good morning. I’ve never liked how the U.S. measures joblessness. The official unemployment rate doesn’t include the number of people who have given up looking for work or are stuck in low-paid jobs that don’t match their skills and aspirations. It doesn’t capture the difference between long-term vs. short-term employment, contract or full-time jobs. Economists at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) understand that frustration and publish a range of measures to capture the nuance of labor underutilization.
President Trump agrees that the number doesn’t reflect the reality of unemployment, though he reached a very different conclusion last week in deciding the numbers were “phony” and “rigged” to underrepresent the robustness of the labor market. He was so mad about the July jobs report, which showed unemployment ticking up to 4.2%, that he decided to fire BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer on Friday.
I immediately thought about the reaction when former GE CEO Jack Welch tweeted his disdain about the job numbers under the Obama Administration back in October of 2012. Welch, a lifelong Republican, was skeptical that the unemployment rate had fallen below 8% for the first time in four years with an election looming. He tweeted: “Unbelievable jobs numbers..these Chicago guys will do anything..can’t debate so change numbers.”
Welch had been retired from GE for more than a decade at that point and had plenty of opinions as a columnist for Fortune. Nevertheless, there was outrage that a leader of his stature was attacking the integrity of a vital nonpartisan government agency and the integrity of the U.S. itself by suggesting that core economic data was politicized. Welch quit the Fortune gig amid uproar over the tweet.
But he didn’t back away from his assertion. “I’m not the first person to question government numbers, and hopefully I won’t be the last,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. He likened the blowback he was facing to Soviet Russia and Communist China. What Welch, a man who famously claimed to cut the bottom 10% of GE’s workforce every year, did not do: Call for the BLS commissioner to be fired.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top news
When Rupert Murdoch dies …
President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal claims Murdoch, 94, is so old he might not make it to trial. Fortune takes a look at what happens to the Murdoch family when the patriarch passes, and discovers that his company is structured in a way that all but guarantees conflict.
Trump continues false claims about the BLS
The president yesterday continued his tirade against Erika McEntarfer, the former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whom he fired on Friday. He called the BLS’s jobs numbers “A SCAM.” He offered no evidence that the numbers are manipulated and, in fact, no serious person thinks the jobs number is rigged. In reality, the numbers are sampled, estimated, and revised on a regular basis. That’s how statistics work!
New Fed governor and BLS chief incoming
The president is expected to appoint a new BLS chief this week and also fill a vacancy on the Fed’s board of governors in the coming days. What to watch for: Whether his nominees are credible or noncredible. Among the possible nominees are Kevin Hassett, currently director of the White House’s National Economic Council, Kevin Warsh of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the FT says.
Trump envoy is searching for a comprehensive Gaza deal
White House envoy Steve Witkoff met with the families of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas and told them Trump was looking for a complete end to the Gaza conflict with all hostages returned, and not a piecemeal deal. “Hamas has said it is prepared to demilitarize. But even over and above that, multiple Arab governments are now demanding that Hamas demilitarizes. So we are very very close to a solution around this war,” Witkoff said. Hamas said it would only disarm once it has its own state with Jerusalem as its capital. That scenario is extremely unlikely to be acceptable to Israel. Meanwhile, Hamas released a video of an emaciated hostage being forced to dig his own grave.
China is choking U.S. military’s rare earth supply
China controls 90% of the supply of rare minerals and prices have gone through the roof. Some elements are now priced between five and 60 times higher than the standard price, the WSJ reports. The scarcities are being acutely felt by U.S. military kit makers. Manufacturers need the minerals for drones, fighter jets, microelectronics, night-vision goggles, missile-targeting systems and satellites, the WSJ reports.
Moody’s economist warns of recession
Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi wrote in a series of X posts over the weekend that “the economy is on the precipice of recession,” specifically citing a poor jobs report, low consumer spending, and rising inflation. Zandi then blamed tariffs and a “highly restrictive immigration policy” for the economic downturn.
Boeing’s bet on the future
A conflict with the company’s union and numerous safety scandals have had a significant effect on Boeing’s bottom line and reputation over the past several years. Fortune’s Shawn Tully outlines how the airplane manufacturer is betting on its 39-year-old chief of commercial airplanes product development to stage a turnaround.
Lara Trump airs Epstein discussion
The president’s daughter-in-law and former co-chair of the Republican interviewed radio host Charlamagne Tha God on Sunday, and her guest argued that “traditional conservatives are going to take the Republican Party back” because they are so angry that the White House refuses to release all the files it holds on Jeffrey Epstein. Trump was not happy to hear that. He called Charlamagne a “racist sleazebag” and “a Low IQ individual, has no idea what words are coming out of his mouth, and knows nothing about me or what I have done,” on Truth Social.
The markets
S&P 500 futures were up 0.7% this morning, premarket, after the index closed down 1.6% on Friday. STOXX Europe 600 was up 0.64% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.49% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.25%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.39%. The South Korea KOSPI was up 0.91%. India’s Nifty 50 was up 0.6%. Bitcoin remains above $114K.
From the analysts
ING on the Fed: “Friday’s soft jobs report knocked the stuffing out of the dollar’s rally. Investors now attach an 80% probability to a 25bp rate cut from the Federal Reserve in September,” per Chris Turner et al.
Goldman Sachs on interest rates: “The US market’s hawkish read on Wednesday’s FOMC press conference has quickly faded into the background after Friday’s jobs report opened a clearer path to cuts,” per George Cole et al.
Goldman Sachs on US GDP: “We expect GDP to grow at a 1% annualized pace in 2025Q3 and 2025Q4, with roughly flat domestic final sales and boosts from a narrowing of the trade deficit and a rebound in inventory accumulation,” per Jan Hatzius et al.
JPMorgan on corporate earnings: “With 65% of S&P 500 companies having reported, the season has so far been better-than-expected. 77% of companies are beating 2Q earnings (vs. 73% avg. last 4Qs…) and 76% are beating revenue estimates (vs. 60%). Roughly 62% of companies have had double beats (i.e. sales and net income, vs. 48% last 4Qs,” per By Dubravko Lakos-Bujas et al.
Around the watercooler
North Korean IT worker infiltrations exploded 220% over the past 12 months, with GenAI weaponized at every stage of the hiring process by Amanda Gerut
Sheryl Sandberg, Bill Gates and the world’s top CEOs swear by the same daily habit—this career coach says Gen Z can easily steal it for success by Orianna Rosa Royle
A vacancy on the Fed is opening early as Trump urges board to ‘assume control’ if Powell doesn’t cut rates by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
Figma IPO’s surprise winner is a charity with 13 million shares—and a famous backstory that sparked a bitter feud over an oil fortune decades ago by Allie Garfinkle
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Jim Edwards.
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