ChainCatcher news, citing Fox Business Channel, reported that economist E.J. Antoni, nominated by President Trump as the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, suggested pausing the agency's highly anticipated monthly employment report, stating that its fundamental methods, economic models, and statistical assumptions are fundamentally flawed.
Before Trump's nomination announcement on Monday, Antoni criticized the unreliability of the data behind the monthly employment report in an interview, stating that it is often exaggerated and warning that it misleads key economic decision-makers from Washington to Wall Street.
Antoni said, "How should businesses plan when they don't know how many jobs are being added or lost in our economy, or how the Federal Reserve should implement monetary policy? This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed immediately. Until the issue is corrected, the Bureau of Labor Statistics should suspend the release of the monthly employment report, but should continue to release more accurate, albeit less timely, quarterly data," he said. "Key decision-makers from Wall Street to Washington, D.C. rely on this data, and a lack of confidence in this data can have far-reaching impacts."