The Department of Labor’s inspector general on Wednesday announced it is probing the data collection practices that undergird federal jobs reports amid growing concerns the government is relying on significantly unreliable data.
Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which lies under the Labor Department’s jurisdiction, releases a report of how many jobs have been created, which both the federal and private sectors rely on as a key indicator of economic health.
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Concerns have long been raised about the accuracy of the data pool the government draws from to file the reports, with the Labor Department’s investigation this week coming after the BLS announced Tuesday that the job market was far weaker in 2024 and early 2025 than was previously reported. The economy added nearly one million fewer jobs than the BLS previously reported between March of last year and March 2025, according to the agency’s negative revisions.
The Trump administration said on Tuesday that the revisions are a sign that Trump inherited a worse economy than previously thought from former President Joe Biden, and argued it is proof that changes must be made at the BLS to improve the accuracy of data collection.
THERE ARE MORE JOBLESS AMERICANS THAN JOB OPENINGS: BLS
“Today, the BLS released the largest downward revision on record, proving that President Trump was right: Biden’s economy was a disaster and the BLS is broken,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “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.”
Trump fired Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, the head of the BLS during the Biden era, last month after the agency published a disappointing jobs report. In her place, the president appointed E.J. Antoni, who has suggested eliminating the monthly jobs report due to concerns that it is unreliable.