01:08 PM EDT, 08/12/2025 (MT Newswires) -- E.J. Antoni, President Donald Trump's choice to be the next Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner, told Fox Business in an interview published Tuesday that the BLS should suspend publication of the key monthly employment report until issues with its methodology can be addressed.

Antoni, currently the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation, said the data should be published on a quarterly basis, noting the importance of the report for businesses and the Federal Reserve.

"Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data," Antoni said, according to Fox Business, "Major decision-makers from Wall Street to D.C. rely on these numbers, and a lack of confidence in the data has far-reaching consequences."

Antoni's comments were made before he was nominated on Monday but after the July employment report released on Aug. 1 showed not only a weak jobs gain of 73,000 in that month but also a downward adjustment of 258,000 jobs combined for May and June. The report prompted Trump to dismiss former BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, citing large revisions in recent years that suggest the data process is flawed.

Antoni pointed to several issues with the government data, including a falling response rate and the BLS's assumption to make up for missing data, errors that have not been addressed by the previous leadership according to Antoni.

"The problems in the BLS data have been evident for three years now, and they still haven't been fixed," Antoni said in the interview. "The fact that you consistently have large downward revisions means that there are other things wrong with your models and methodologies. Statistical assumptions that may have worked fine before COVID no longer work in today's economy and therefore need to be revised."

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