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spokesperson for the department's Office of the Inspector
General said Wednesday that it is launching a review of “the
challenges that Bureau of Labor Statistics encounters collecting
and reporting closely watched economic data."
The audit will focus on the agency's reports on inflation and
employment, a Wednesday letter to BLS acting commissioner
William Wiatrowski said. Both reports are considered definitive
measures of those two key aspects of the U.S. economy. The
letter was from Laura Nicolosi, assistant inspector general for
audit at the Labor Department's inspector general.
The audit is the latest example of increasing scrutiny of the
BLS as its recent jobs reports have shown a sharp slowdown in
hiring over the summer. The agency has also made steep downward
revisions in previously-published estimates of jobs and hiring,
causing President Donald Trump to denounce the agency and to
fire its commissioner last month.
On Tuesday, the BLS released annual revisions to its employment
figures that showed there were 911,000 fewer jobs created in the
year ending in March 2025, a deep reduction that suggested the
job market was much weaker in 2024 and earlier this year than
previously thought.
The initial data is compiled based on surveys of about 120,000
companies, and the revisions are then made based on actual job
rolls employers then submit quarterly to state unemployment tax
offices.
U.S. government statistical agencies have seen an
inflation-adjusted 16% drop in funding since 2009, according to
a July report from the American Statistical Association.
The large downward revision has increased pressure on the
Federal Reserve to reduce its key interest rate, in hopes that
cheaper borrowing costs will help revive the growth and job
gains.
“This is exactly why we need new leadership to restore trust and
confidence in the BLS’s data on behalf of the financial markets,
businesses, policymakers, and families that rely on this data to
make major decisions,” White House press secretary Karoline
Leavitt said Tuesday.
Trump has nominated E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the
conservative Heritage Foundation, to be the next commissioner of
the BLS.
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