E.J. Antoni, President Donald Trump’s latest pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), has ignited controversy in Washington and on Wall Street after publicly suggesting he may suspend the agency’s closely watched monthly jobs report over concerns about its accuracy and methodology. In an interview with Fox News Digital on Aug. 4, before his nomination, Antoni said that until the report is “corrected,” the BLS “should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data.”
The move comes in the wake of Trump’s abrupt firing of Erika McEntarfer, the previous BLS commissioner, following a report that revealed not only disappointing job growth for July, but sharp downward revisions for prior months.
In early August, the BLS reported that U.S. employers added only 73,000 jobs in July, a figure that fell far short of economists’ projections. More alarming were the downward revisions to the May and June numbers: The agency slashed its estimates by a combined 258,000 jobs, showing that fewer than 20,000 jobs were created in each of the months of May and June.
Trump vented his frustrations on social media, alleging—without evidence—that the numbers were “rigged” to hurt his administration and the Republican Party. Hours later, he dismissed McEntarfer, who had been confirmed by the Senate in 2024 and had worked under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
Antoni’s call to halt monthly reports
The appointment of Antoni, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation and a vocal critic of BLS data methodologies, signaled a radical shift. In his Fox Business interview, Antoni argued the monthly jobs report is so unreliable it misleads major economic actors—from businesses to the Federal Reserve—who depend on accurate employment data to make decisions.
“How on earth are businesses supposed to plan—or how is the Fed supposed to conduct monetary policy—when they don’t know how many jobs are being added or lost in our economy?” he asked rhetorically. “It’s a serious problem that needs to be fixed immediately,” he said.
Antoni highlighted declining response rates to BLS employer surveys, now reportedly below 50%, as a central concern. He contends this has increased the likelihood of sampling errors and misestimations in the data, a problem exacerbated by recent downward revisions. He blamed declining response rates for the lack of accuracy in the numbers, disagreeing with Trump that the numbers were intentionally manipulated. Still, he insisted it needs to be fixed somehow. “Major decision-makers from Wall Street to D.C. rely on these numbers, and a lack of confidence in the data has far-reaching consequences,” he added.
Reaction and ramifications
Trump praised Antoni’s nomination, promising “honest and accurate” numbers as essential to restoring public trust. However, while some states—like Colorado—have temporarily suspended monthly jobs data publication owing to quality concerns in the past, a potential nationwide pause would be unprecedented.
Antoni’s nomination is now likely to face even more heightened scrutiny in an expectedly contentious Senate confirmation process. As the economy teeters amid weak jobs growth and ongoing debates about government data reliability, all eyes are on the BLS and whether its monthly jobs report will remain a fixture in tracking the health of American employment.
Update, Aug. 12, 2025: This report was updated to clarify that the Fox News Digital interview took place on Aug. 4.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
