What really goes on at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (Update)

The Indicator from Planet Money

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🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

On Friday, we reported on the latest jobs numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed weaker than expected growth. On Friday afternoon, President Trump fired the person in charge of those numbers.

The monthly jobs report is a critical tool for the economy, used by businesses to make decisions and the Federal Reserve to set rates. So how exactly are those figures collected? Today, we're re-airing our behind-the-scenes look at how the BLS puts together the jobs report ... one call at a time.

This show originally aired June 6, 2022.

Related:
Can we trust the monthly jobs report?
Would you trust an economist with your economy?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:02.0	This is the Indicator from Planet Money.
0:13.0	I'm Darien Woods.
0:14.0	And I'm Waylon Wong.
0:16.0	Here at the indicator, jobs growth is one of our favorite economic indicators.
0:20.0	It's this really direct measure of how the
0:23.0	economy is going in a way that has this tangible, wide-reaching effect on everyday people.
0:29.6	But somehow, over the last few days, this has also become one of the most controversial
0:34.4	indicators. On Friday, President Trump posted on Truth Social that he had directed his team to fire
0:41.1	the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, Erica McIntyff.
0:44.3	Shake up at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
0:47.2	President Trump took to Truth Social.
0:49.3	He said that he is directing his team to fire the head of the commissioner.
0:53.0	And now this bizarre firing or soon to be firing, what do we know?
0:58.1	Now William Riatrowski, Deputy BLS Commissioner, is acting until a replacement can be appointed.
1:04.1	This was all after a weak jobs report and major downward revisions to the number of new jobs
1:10.5	reported for the previous
1:11.5	few months. Trump posted that the numbers were rigged, and he also accused Erica McIntafa
1:17.3	of faking the jobs numbers before the election to boost Carmel Harris's chances of winning.
1:23.2	We've covered how the Bureau of Labor Statistics has multiple layers of protection from meddling,
1:28.1	making that extremely unlikely.
1:30.6	Now, we at the indicator always try to understand, really understand, what's going on with
	...

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