The head of the US labour statistics agency who was fired by Donald Trump has hit out the president, warning his attacks on the organisation were a "dangerous step" that would leave Americans "suffering the consequences".

Trump sacked Bureau of Labor Statistics chief Erika McEntarfer at the beginning of August following the publication of a gloomy jobs report, with the president claiming its statistics were "rigged" against him.

"Firing your chief statisticians for releasing data you do not like has serious economic consequences," McEntarfer said at her alma mater Bard College, in her first public remarks since she was fired. "The list of countries that have gone down this route is not a good list -- Argentina, Greece, Turkey."

Speaking at an event arranged by the New York college's Levy Economics Institute, she added: "The resulting loss of trust in economic statistics led these countries to worsening economic crises, higher inflation and higher borrowing costs. If we follow a similar path, all Americans will suffer the consequences."

Trump's decision to fire McEntarfer and nominate EJ Antoni, a loyalist from the rightwing Heritage Foundation, to replace her, has startled many economists and prompted fears over the quality of US economic data. It came as part of a broad assault by Trump and his administration against important institutions, including the Federal Reserve.

The move against the BLS was seen as particularly significant because the agency is responsible for producing numerous crucial reports on the world's biggest economy, including those on employment and inflation.

The data the BLS produces influences policymaking and underpins the pricing for trillions of dollars in assets globally.

McEntarfer praised acting commissioner William Wiatrowski, who is in place pending Antoni's Senate confirmation, but indicated that, after the events of the past six weeks she harboured concerns about the agency's future.

The former BLS commissioner said she was made aware of Trump's Truth Social post firing her by a journalist. "I thought it was an angry tweet, because firing your chief statistician is a dangerous step," she said.

McEntarfer said she was not surprised the decision to fire her made headlines, despite relatively few people knowing either about her or the BLS before she lost her job.

"You should get to live in a country where you do not have to know who the chief statistician is," she said, adding that messing with the economic data was like "messing with the traffic lights".

The July jobs report that triggered McEntarfer's sacking showed the US labour market was weakening after years of exceptionally strong growth.

The Trump administration claimed large revisions in the closely watched monthly jobs reports had undermined faith in the BLS.

The statistics agency has, similar to other data compilers, suffered from a fall in response rates to surveys -- especially since the pandemic.

McEntarfer acknowledged the BLS was also struggling under the weight of funding shortfalls when she took over in 2024.

"I came prepared to help the agency modernise data collection," she said. "But this takes money. And what I found out when I got there was Congress was not really into funding that work."

She condemned the further cuts imposed by Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which have contributed to shortfalls in data collection for the crucial consumer price index inflation series and the loss of 11 per cent of staff in April alone.

"Keeping the agency operational was a constant high-wire act," she said, adding that "ironically" she had assumed the BLS's situation would improve in the weeks before she was fired after Musk fell out with Trump.

"'Maybe we'll return to some sense of normalcy,' I hopefully said to another senior leader. Two weeks later, I was fired."

Fired BLS chief calls Trump's attack on US data agency a 'dangerous step'