Trump revealed jobs data early

President Donald Trump in a social media post Thursday evening indirectly revealed data from Friday’s market-moving nonfarm payrolls count, an apparent violation of long-standing federal policy on statistical releases.

In a Truth Social post around 9 p.m. ET, the president indicated that private sector payrolls had expanded by 654,000 for the full year of 2025, a total that would have included Friday’s jobs count for December.

Office of Management and Budget policy prohibits executive branch officials from commenting on such releases early and in fact forbids public statements until 30 minutes after the release.

Presidents can be briefed on official jobs figures ahead of the release.

A White House official conceded, however, that “there was an inadvertent public disclosure of aggregate data that was partially derived from pre-released information. The White House is accordingly reviewing protocols regarding economic data releases.”

The official further chided the media for “grasping at straws to foment another fake controversy” and instead urged a focus on how “President Trump’s policies are laying the groundwork for an economic resurgence as GDP and real wage growth continue to accelerate.”

The Trump post drew a distinction between private and government job growth, with the latter down 181,000 for 2025.

Friday’s jobs data release went on to show that nonfarm payrolls increased 50,000 for December, all but 2,000 of which came from the private sector. The figures, while slightly less than official economists’ estimates, assuaged concerns about a steeper drop in employment. Stock futures trended higher following the data.

While Trump’s post would not allow traders to calculate the exact payrolls figure because of lack of data on revisions, they could have gleaned a rough estimation of the figure and possibly ruled out a December job-loss scenario that would have spooked markets.

Trump once telegraphed somewhat a positive jobs figure in his first term, drawing criticism.