Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, ECONOMIC NEWS—BLS Commissioner fired, accused of deliberately understating jobs numbers, (Aug 4, 2025)

By Patricia K. Ruiz, J.D.

Industry groups urged Congress to respond immediately and investigate McEntarfer’s firing.

The Trump administration fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, a Biden appointee, accusing her of having a “lengthy history of inaccuracies and incompetence.” The firing follows revisions in BLS May and June job reports after employment in the combined two months turning out 258,000 lower than previously reported.

Accusations. The administration accused McEntarfer of deliberately reporting false numbers to reflect poorly on his administration, a “baseless, damaging claim [that] undermines the valuable work and dedication of BLS staff who produce the reports each month,” argued Friends of BLS in a statement on the commissioner’s removal. The Association of Public Data Users (APDU) responded to McEntarfer’s firing, stating, “The moment many of us in the public data community have feared has come to pass: the President has fired the head of a federal statistical agency because the data are politically inconvenient.” The APDU further stated, “Under our democracy, it is unacceptable to fire someone for publishing data collected in accordance with scientific standards.”

Collection of data. The commissioner does not determine what the numbers are for the job reports but only reports on what the data show, Friends of the BLS explained. The process of obtaining job numbers is decentralized by design to prevent interference. Each month, BLS revises the employment estimates of the prior two months to reflect slower-arriving, more accurate information. The APDU stated that this is “a process which has happened with every jobs report (under the administration of both parties) for decades without incident.”

Appeal to Congress. Friends of the BLS urged Congress to investigate the factors leading to McEntarfer’s removal, to strongly urge her continued service, and to ensure the nonpartisan integrity of the BLS commissioner’s post is retained. The APDU, as well as the Data Rescue Project (DRP) in its own statement, echoed Friends of the BLS’ call for Congress’s immediate response.

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