According to the Republican administration, that report revealed that the United States created only 73,000 jobs in July, reflecting deep revisions to figures from previous months. At the time, job growth in May was revised downward, from 144,000 to just 19,000. It also reduced job creation in June, from 147,000 to just 14,000.

Trump said, without evidence, that the June jobs report was “rigged to make Republicans and me look bad.”

In addition to the highly influential jobs report, the BLS is responsible for producing the Consumer Price Index inflation reading, which influences the value of everything from pension payments to trillions of dollars of U.S. government debt.

Antoni’s withdrawal of the nomination poses a new problem for the statistical agency.

The BLS has struggled with a drop in response rates to its labor market surveys since the pandemic, along with funding and staff cuts that led to shortfalls in data collection for its inflation readings.

While this had raised concerns about data quality, many mainstream economists on the left and right were also worried that the Antoni’s loyalty to Trump and his lack of statistical or management experience posed a risk to the BLS’s objectivity and overall reputation.

Antoni had been a harsh critic of the BLS, saying in May that the agency’s reports often resembled “a random number generator.”

He also said CPI readings taken under the Joe Biden administration produced “fake” numbers from a “magical fantasy world” that understated the scale of price increases.

The BLS is temporarily headed by agency veteran William Wiatrowski. The White House will have to find another nominee as investors pore over data to understand the effects of Trump's tariffs and the rise of artificial intelligence on the U.S. economy.