Trump yanks his BLS pick, throwing the agency into further chaos

The Trump administration has pulled its nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics, weeks after firing the previous chief and just as the federal government entered a shutdown.

President Donald Trump nominated conservative economist EJ Antoni as the BLS head last month, after removing Erika McEntarfer from the post following employment numbers that showed the jobs market stalling. Antoni was set to appear before a Senate committee for a confirmation hearing for the job heading up the key data agency of about 2,000 people.

“Dr EJ Antoni is a brilliant economist and an American patriot that will continue to do good work on behalf of our great country,” a White House official said in a statement. “President Trump is committed to fixing the longstanding failures at the BLS that have undermined the public’s trust in critical economic data.”

The BLS is America’s gold-standard data shop whose monthly releases on jobs, inflation, and prices move markets, shape the Federal Reserve’s policy, and inform everything from Social Security adjustments to corporate hiring plans.

But it is an embattled agency. About one-third of its leadership slots are vacant, according to its website last updated in early August. Two BLS advisory panels that delivered statistical guidance on the monthly jobs reports were eliminated in March through Trump's executive orders.

Trump abruptly fired the former BLS commissioner after the July jobs report showed weak hiring and significant downward revisions of prior months. Those numbers, the president claimed baselessly and without evidence, were “rigged.” According to the Associated Press, BLS staffers reacted at the time in internal emails with words such as “depressing” and “CRAZY!!,” rallying around the agency’s mission of impartial data reporting.

Antoni serves as chief economist at the right wing think tank the Heritage Foundation. His nomination was heavily criticized by economists for a lack of professional credentials. Beyond that, social media posts also surfaced showing him on video calls with a Nazi battleship as his background.

And NBC reported in August that Antoni appeared in “numerous videos” of the crowd at the Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots. The BLS nominee declined to comment, but a White House official told the site that Antoni was just a “bystander.”

To compound the issue, the BLS has entered a period of government shutdown which began overnight Wednesday, meaning it will not, as it stands, release its closely watched jobs report Friday.

Historically, the Federal Reserve, U.S. businesses, and households nationwide rely on the monthly employment report as a gauge of the country’s labor market picture. With no agreement on a government spending pact, the jobs report is sidelined indefinitely. 

“I appreciated meeting with Dr. Antoni, and was looking forward to his hearing to further discuss ideas to reform BLS,” said Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, per Bloomberg. “I will work with President Trump to fix BLS so it can deliver accurate, reliable economic data to the American people.”

—Brian O'Connell and Joseph Zeballos-Roig contributed to this article.