Jamie Dimon says US economy is weakening after record BLS revision

Jamie Dimon said the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ record revision to US payrolls data is further proof that the US economy is battling a slowdown.

“The economy is weakening,” the JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive officer said in an interview with CNBC Tuesday. “Whether that is on the way to recession or just weakening, I don’t know.”

The number of workers on payrolls will likely be revised down by a record 911,000, or 0.6%, according to the government’s preliminary benchmark revision out Tuesday. It showed average monthly job growth was roughly half of what the data previously indicated.

The revision “just confirms what we already thought,” Dimon said.

President Donald Trump seized on the revised labor market numbers to pressure the central bank to rapidly cut interest rates. He used a social-media post to rail against the Federal Reserve leadership: “Incompetence is more important than to defend theoretical independence,” Trump said in the post.