E.J. Antoni, an economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation, is President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics after he fired the previous chief following a disappointing jobs report.

"E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE," Trump said in a social media post. "I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role."

Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the U.S. commissioner of Labor Statistics, earlier this month, accusing her without evidence of manipulating data for "political purposes" after the Labor Department reported the United States added a disappointing 73,000 jobs in July.

The firing raised concerns about the future accuracy and integrity of the nation’s job numbers.

Former BLS Commissioner William Beach, who was nominated by Trump during his first term as president and also worked at the Heritage Foundation, said on CNN that McEntarfer's termination is "damaging" and will cause people to "suspect political influence" in the jobs data.

"I don’t think there’s any grounds at all for this firing and it really hurts the statistical system, it undermines credibility in BLS," Beach said.

The Senate in January 2024 confirmed McEntarfer, an appointment of former President Joe Biden. McEntarfer, a labor economist, had worked 20 years in the federal government, including previous stints at the U.S. Census Bureau and Treasury Department.

Antoni has criticized how the BLS collects jobs numbers, saying during an Aug. 4 discussion on C-SPAN that "there have been serious problems with the data." He pointed to downward revisions in prior months' jobs data to argue "there are clearly problems with the numbers."

Beach noted that BLS gathers jobs data through a survey and that not all respondents submit it on time. He said studies show the initial BLS monthly jobs reports, before they are revised, are more accurate now than they were 30 years ago.

Trump declared in his social media post announcing Antoni's nomination that "our economy is booming." But recent BLS reports indicate an economic slowdown.

The July report also revised payroll gains for May and June down by 258,000. That left May’s additions at 19,000 and June’s at 14,000, the weakest performance since the nation was climbing out of the COVID-19 recession in December 2020.

Contributing: Joey Garrison and Paul Davidson, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump names conservative economist E.J. Antoni to lead Bureau of Labor Statistics

Reporting by Zac Anderson, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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