The U.S. Department of Labor admits the non-farm payroll data mistake

According to a spokesperson from the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. government failed to release the key revised non-farm payroll data on time last week due to a technical malfunction. The spokesperson admitted that staff had provided the data to callers before its official public release.

This incident has prompted the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to strengthen its data release protocols. The BLS, a department responsible for issuing high-profile economic reports such as the U.S. monthly non-farm payroll and inflation data, has faced a series of errors, with Wall Street firms criticizing the agency for frequently mishandling and releasing market-sensitive data.

The spokesperson stated that on August 21, local time, the BLS delayed the release of the preliminary benchmark revision for the non-farm payroll data by more than half an hour, forcing staff to manually upload the data. According to the spokesperson, while these figures became visible to BLS employees on the internal website at 10:10 a.m. Washington time, they were not available to external network users until around 10:32 a.m.

The spokesperson noted that the issue also involved a lack of internal communication within the bureau, leading to discrepancies in how staff responded to public inquiries. Since the 10 a.m. embargo had passed, some BLS employees provided the information to those who requested the data.
The spokesperson added that in the future, BLS will ensure multiple forms of communication for each data release, including social media posts, though no further details about the plan were provided.

Additionally, the agency has implemented a new policy requiring staff handling data inquiries to only share data with clients once senior personnel have confirmed that the data has been publicly and widely released.

Last week’s incident was not the first mistake by the BLS this year. In May, the agency inadvertently released CPI data 30 minutes early. Earlier in the year, records revealed that BLS economists had communicated key U.S. inflation data, not yet widely released, to major Wall Street firms.

This latest incident has raised questions about the department’s procedures for releasing some of the world’s most sensitive economic information and has sparked outrage among Wall Street banks, which closely monitor such government data to gauge the pulse of the U.S. economy.

BLS data is frequently cited in the media and is used by businesses, academics, and policymakers to inform their decisions. Trends in non-farm payroll employment are particularly scrutinized by the Federal Reserve and other agencies to assess labor market conditions and the business climate across various industries. Data released on August 21 indicated that U.S. non-farm payrolls as of March may see the largest downward revision since 2009.

The spokesperson added that the government will announce more measures in the coming days. The BLS previously stated that the Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General had been notified about last week’s incident.

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