Trump revealed jobs data early
President Donald Trump indirectly revealed Friday’s market-moving nonfarm payrolls data in a social media post Thursday evening; This is a blatant violation of longstanding federal policy regarding the release of statistics.
One Real Social post At around 9 p.m., the president noted that private sector payrolls had increased by 654,000 people for the full year 2025; This number includes Friday’s December jobs count.
Office of Management and Budget Policy bans executive branch officials it prohibits early comment on such broadcasts and, in fact, prohibits public comment for up to 30 minutes after broadcast.
CNBC has reached out to the White House for comment. Presidents may be briefed before official jobs figures are released.
The Trump post drew a distinction between growth in private and government jobs; the latter dropped by 181,000 for 2025.
Data from the December employment report of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which US President Donald Trump published on his Truth Social account about 12 hours before the figures were made public, can be seen in this screenshot taken on January 9, 2026.
@realdonaldtrump | via Reuters
Friday’s jobs data release showed nonfarm payrolls increased by 50,000 in December, with all but 2,000 of that coming from the private sector. While the figures were slightly lower than official economists had predicted, they eased concerns about a steeper decline in employment. Following the data, stock futures contracts entered an upward trend.
While Trump’s post wouldn’t allow traders to calculate the exact payroll figure due to a lack of data on revisions, they could get a rough estimate of the figure and ignore the job loss scenario in December that would likely spook markets.
Trump once reported a positive employment number during his first term and came under criticism.
