You can trust the jobs report, Labor Department workers urge public

With a new, sobering jobs report out Friday, some current employees at the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) are seeking to reassure the American public that the government’s economic data is reliable and worthy of their trust.

“Our job is to deliver economic data guided by law and statistical practice —not partisan whim,” they wrote in a statement read aloud at a rally outside the Labor Department’s Washington, D.C. headquarters on Friday morning by Helen Lurie. She is a member of the Stop DOL Cuts coalition, which is a group of former Labor Department employees advocating for current department staff. Lurie previously worked for the department’s Women’s Bureau.

NPR agreed not to name the BLS employees behind the statement because they fear reprisal from the Trump administration for speaking out and don’t want to be targeted for their words.

Their statement comes about a month after President Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer following a weak July jobs report. Without citing evidence, Trump claimed the numbers had been rigged to make him look bad. He also accused McEntarfer of manipulating the jobs numbers before last November’s presidential election in an effort to get Kamala Harris elected.

The current Labor Department employees called McEntarfer’s firing alarming and said she should be reinstated.

“Dr. McEntarfer did nothing wrong. No serious observer claims otherwise. Commissioners don’t ‘cook’ the numbers; they don’t even see them until after the estimates are complete,” they wrote.

Friday’s jobs report shows the U.S. added just 22,000 jobs in August – far less than anticipated. It also included a revision to the June report revealing that the country lost jobs that month for the first time since 2020.

Revisions of jobs numbers aren’t “a major mistake”

Both the July and the August jobs reports included downward revisions of previous months’ job gains. Trump called the revisions included in the July report “a major mistake.” On the contrary, revisions — either upwards or downwards — of the number of people working in the country are normal and fairly common. In fact, the July jobs numbers were revised up by 6,000 on Friday.

Every month, the government surveys about 121,000 businesses and government agencies across the country. But some employers don’t respond in time for publication of the jobs report. Instead, they may send in their employment data later, leading to these revisions. The information is folded in to existing data to get a more accurate picture for the previous months.

In their statement, the BLS employees emphasized the transparency of their work.

“BLS publishes its sources, publishes its methods, and its data revisions follow a set schedule,” they wrote. “The public doesn’t have to guess whether the job numbers are real.”

By midafternoon Friday, Trump had not commented directly on the August jobs numbers. He did take another swipe at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, however, writing that he should have lowered interest rates long ago.

Regardless, the BLS employees said they would not be intimated and vowed to publish reliable data, “no matter how inconvenient the results.”

“The numbers will remain accurate and nonpartisan,” they wrote. “And if that ever changes, the professionals will tell you.”