The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, has repeatedly presented amazing figures, stating the coal and mining sector had added 50,000 new jobs in the last quarter.
Figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) speak a much more moderate language, at least when you look at coal mining only. According to the statistics, this sector added 1,000 jobs in the first quarter 2017.
In the U.S. coal mining sector there were only 50,000 jobs in total, as of January 2017. So, adding 50,000 would have been a miraculous doubling of employment.
Pruitt might have gotten something mixed up and/or was somewhat unspecific on the time frame ('last quarter') and the exact sector he was referring to ('coal jobs'/'mining jobs'), as The Washington Post observes.
The closest you can get to Pruitt's figure is when you take the October 2016 figures for all mining (not just coal) as a starting point. The jobs added would then amount to 47,000 new jobs in all of mining, most of which were labelled as support activities.
You will find more statistics at Statista
