() President Donald Trump has chosen E.J. Antoni to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a longtime critic of the agency who has already hinted at fundamental changes that could come to the monthly job reports.

Trump announced his new choice with high expectations on Tuesday. 

“Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “I know E.J. Antoni will do an incredible job in this new role. Congratulations E.J.!”

Antoni was tapped after previous commissioner and Biden appointee Erika McEntarfer was fired by Trump, who accused her of allegedly manipulating job numbers.

He will still need to be confirmed by the Senate before officially being installed in office. 

Antoni’s selection comes one day before the BLS is scheduled to release the latest inflation data for July. It is forecast to show that consumer prices rose for the third straight month as tariffs are pushing up the cost of many imported goods.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that “the goal” is to keep publishing monthly jobs reports but added that the data quality has declined, which is why new leadership is required to ensure “accuracy” and “trustworthiness.”

Who is E.J. Antoni? 

Antoni is currently the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget.

He holds master’s and doctoral degrees in economics and has previously worked as an economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, according to his Heritage Foundation bio.

He is also a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Unleash Prosperity.

Antoni is a former economist at Texas Public Policy Foundation, where he taught courses on labor economics, money and banking, the organization stated. 

What has Antoni said about the BLS jobs reports? 

Antoni has criticized the bureau’s collection and publication of the jobs data for years, calling it unreliable and overstated. This was particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic, after which the agency has frequently revised its initial jobs estimates. 

“How on earth are businesses supposed to plan – or how is the Fed supposed to conduct monetary policy – when they don’t know how many jobs are being added or lost in our economy? It’s a serious problem that needs to be fixed immediately,” Antoni told Fox News one week before his nomination. 

“Until it is corrected, the BLS should suspend issuing the monthly job reports but keep publishing the more accurate, though less timely, quarterly data,” he said, adding, “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 added that he did not think that the jobs report data was warped but that the mode of collecting data was fundamentally flawed.

“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,” he told Fox News. 

What are economists saying about Antoni’s being chosen? 

Some prominent economists on both sides of the aisle have raised concerns over Antoni’s selection. 

“I don’t think I have ever publicly criticized any Presidential nominee before. But E.J. Antoni is completely unqualified to be BLS Commissioner. He is an extreme partisan and does not have any relevant expertise. He would be a break from decades of nonpartisan technocrats,” former Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Jason Furman posted on social media.

Kyle Pomeleau, a tax expert for the right-leaning Tax Foundation and the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote on X: “There are a lot of competent conservative economists that could do this job. E.J. is not one of them.”

Others are worried the illusion of partisanship, even if not fully expressed, will taint the legitimacy of the data and cast doubt on the results.

“The sad thing is that there are countless competent, respected conservative economists (especially at universities) who could do a terrific job running BLS. But no credible economist would take a job in which you’d get fired for publishing accurate data. Alas…,” Jessica Riedl, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said on X. 

What happened to the previous BLS commissioner? 

Trump fired McEntarfer Aug. 1 after the July jobs report showed hiring slowed sharply this spring, with job gains in May and June revised much lower than initially estimated.

Revisions, including downward revisions, are not unusual and occurred during the Trump administration as well. Overall, hiring jumped after the pandemic, and the unemployment rate stayed low even after the revisions.

But Trump accused McEntarfer, without evidence, of rigging the jobs data for political reasons.

Antoni had called for her removal, saying on X: “There are better ways to collect, process, and disseminate data that is the task for the next BLS commissioner, and only consistent delivery of accurate data in a timely manner will rebuild the trust that has been lost over the last several years.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.