Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh.

President Trump says he is firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

He made the announcement in a social media post just hours after the latest jobs report

showed signs of weakness in the U.S. labor market.

Stocks have ended the day sharply lower with major market indices falling 1.5% to more than 2%.

And PR Scott Horsley reports on how the jobs data and uncertainty over tariffs are roiling markets.

U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, and updated figures show virtually no job growth in May and June.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate

inched up to 4.2 percent. The federal government continues to cut jobs and is down about 84,000 since

the beginning of the year. Factories also cut 11,000 jobs in July. The manufacturing sector has been

hard hit by President Trump's tariffs.

As expected, Trump is calling for even higher tariffs on goods from many countries, but in an order issued Thursday, he pushed back the effective date of many of those import taxes for at least another week.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

Trump's also targeting the Fed Chair. NPR's Frank Ordendonias reports the president's challenging the central bank's board to assume control if the

chairman won't lower interest rates. President Trump intensified his attacks on the Fed chair,

Jerome Powell, calling him a moron in a series of social media posts. On the same day, the government

released a not-so-great jobs report.

Trump later referred to the Fed chair as, quote, Jerome Too Late Powell and called again for

rates to be lowered. Policymakers at the Federal Reserve voted 9 to 2 to hold interest rates

steady, despite the pressure campaign from the president.

The Fed cut rates one percentage point last year, but since then have been waiting to see how

the president's new tariffs impact the broader economy.

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