WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday said he was nominating economist E.J. Antoni as the new Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, ten days after firing the statistics agency’s previous leader after a weak scorecard of the U.S. job market, accusing her without evidence of manipulating the figures.
Antoni is currently the chief economist at the influential U.S. conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.
“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Antoni, who must be confirmed by the Senate, takes over an agency that had a staff of 2,300 as of September 2024 and that has come under heightened scrutiny for the eroding quality of the data it produces. Its monthly figures about the state of the U.S. job market and inflation are consumed by a global audience of economists, investors, business leaders, public policymakers and consumers, and their release routinely has a visible and real-time effect on stock, bond and currency markets around the world.
Trump added to growing concerns about the reliability of BLS and other federal government economic data when he fired Erika McEntarfer as BLS commissioner on August 1. Her dismissal came hours after the agency reported much weaker-than-expected U.S. job growth for July and issued an historically large revision to its employment figures for May and June, reducing the estimated number of jobs created in the two months by nearly 260,000.
In announcing her firing, Trump accused McEntarfer — appointed to the role by former President Joe Biden — of manipulating the employment data for political purposes. There is no evidence of that being true.
He promised he would replace her “with someone much more competent and qualified.”
Antoni, who holds a doctoral degree in economics, was previously an economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and has taught courses on labor economics, money and banking, according to the Heritage Foundation.
He must now address the difficulties BLS has had with declining survey response rates and with data collection problems in other critical statistical series, such as for inflation.
The nonfarm payrolls report provides a monthly snapshot of the U.S. job market, offering scores of figures including how many jobs were created, what the unemployment rate was, how many people joined or left the labor force and what workers earn per hour and how many hours they work in a week.