'I'm disappointed': Fox Business reacts live to Trump's 'weaker' new job numbers
Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo reacted live Friday to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics’ December jobs report which revealed just 50,000 jobs were created last month, a number she admitted was “weaker than expected,” but attempted to spin as a positive for the U.S. economy.
“The jobs numbers are weaker than expected, but the market is focused on what it will mean for the Federal Reserve and whether or not the Fed is going to actually cut interest rates further,” Bartiromo said, just seconds after the BLS published the jobs report.
“If we had a report that was much better than expected, even though that would be good news, the market may have traded down because of what it means for the Fed!”
Conservative economist Stephen Moore, a guest Friday on Fox Business, attempted to blame the underwhelming job numbers on a lack of “qualified skilled workers” in the United States, while admitting his disappointment with the report.
“The question is why aren't we creating more jobs? I think the answer is very simple, we have a severe labor shortage in America!” Moore said.
“We have more jobs available than the qualified skilled workers to fill them… Yeah, I'm disappointed at this job number, we'd like to see it higher. We've got to get more people in the workforce!”
The BLS’s jobs report revealed that around 50,000 jobs were added in December, that the unemployment rate dropped down from 4.6% to 4.4%, and that the average hourly earning ticked up by 0.3%.