Labor Department watchdog to audit jobs and inflation reports from embattled BLS
WASHINGTON (AP) — A government watchdog says it will review how a Labor Department agency compiles and reports some of the nation’s highest profile economic data, just two days after the agency made a sharp downward revision in its estimate of the number of jobs.
A 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.
By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
AP Economics Writer
