The US Labor Department’s internal watchdog has launched an investigation into how it gathers jobs and inflation data after intense White House criticism of the agency. The office of the Labor Department’s inspector general said it had launched a probe to look at the “challenges” the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) faces gathering and updating the information.The move comes a day after the agency issued a revision to job figures showing growth last year was far weaker than it had previously estimated. Last month, President Donald Trump fired the head of the BLS, saying without evidence that she had rigged the job numbers to make him look bad. In a letter to acting commissioner William Wiatrowski, the Labor Department’s office of inspector general said the decision to launch the probe was a response to the job report revisions and BLS moves to reduce collection of price information.It follows a Labor Department report published on Tuesday showed that the US economy had added 911,000 fewer jobs than initial estimates in the 12 months to March this year, a larger downward revision than economists had expected.The BLS has faced longstanding concerns that a drop in initial response rates might reduce the quality of its surveys. However, Democrats and some economists have voiced alarm that the White House is seeking to politicise economic data. Trump’s decision to nominate conservative economist EJ Antoni who has a reputation for partisan analysis as the new commissioner of the BLS was widely panned.Economists have also criticised recent cuts to BLS panels involving outside experts and decisions to reduce collection of price data, which had been attributed to inadequate funding and staff.The Trump administration has maintained it is seeking to improve the quality of the reports and modernise the office. The office of the inspector general has examined issues with BLS data before. Its report in 2023, which focused on concerns that initial response rates to BLS surveys had declined, concluded that the agency could “do more” identify the limits of its data and be transparent about its assumptions. It has also examined the BLS for issues related to its release of the data.
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US watchdog launches review into official data collection
