President Donald Trump’s Bureau of Labor Statistics has announced there will not be an October jobs report — the first time the monthly data has not been released in 12 years.
According to Axios, “The agency’s closure during the record long shutdown prevented officials from collecting all of the key data needed during the month. It comes at a vulnerable moment for the economy, when data like the unemployment rate, which is are based on surveying American households, can be particularly affected.”
BLS says it will include the data from October in the November jobs report, which will be delayed to allow the publication of both, citing precedent from how the agency handled similar challenges during the government shutdown of October 2013.
However, this move comes after the BLS also postponed the September jobs report.
It also comes after months of controversy over how Trump has leaned on the BLS with political demands to make his numbers look as good as possible.
In the summer, Trump fired the agency’s director after routine revisions that showed certain job numbers weaker than expected, and initially tried to install as a replacement E.J. Antoni, a far-right economist who works for the think tank behind the Project 2025 agenda.
However, Trump ultimately backed off this nomination following a bipartisan backlash over what appeared to be an effort to chill any publication of bad news about the economy under the president’s policies.
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