President Donald Trump has fired the head of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (LBS) after the department revised down recent job numbers by more than 250,000.
He says the figures were "rigged" to make his administration "look bad".
Although the latest revisions were bigger than usual, it is normal for the initial monthly number to be changed and it has happened routinely under both Democratic and Republican presidents.
The BLS head - known as the commissioner - plays no role in collecting the data or putting the numbers together, only stepping in to review the final press release before its published, according to former commissioners.
"My reaction was, 'That couldn't happen,'" says Katharine Abraham, who served as BLS commissioner from 1993 to 2001, about Trump's claims that the numbers had been rigged.
