Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni, tapped by President Donald Trump to lead the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, said the agency should suspend its closely watched monthly employment report until long-standing data-quality issues are fixed. His comments were made in a Fox Business interview recorded before Monday’s nomination announcement and released on Tuesday. Antoni contends the survey-based report routinely overstates job creation and requires large downward revisions because response rates have fallen below 50 percent and pandemic-era economic shifts have undermined statistical assumptions. He suggested issuing only the bureau’s more comprehensive, though less timely, quarterly employment figures while its methodology is overhauled. The proposal follows Trump’s 1 August firing of former BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer after a July jobs release that cut May and June payroll estimates by a combined 258,000 positions. At a briefing on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it remains the administration’s “hope” that monthly reports will resume once the data can be trusted. Halting the report would deprive markets, the Federal Reserve and businesses of the nation’s primary real-time gauge of labor conditions, marking the biggest change in U.S. economic data publication in decades. Antoni must still win Senate confirmation; labor groups and some economists warn a suspension could heighten uncertainty for policymakers and workers alike.