Labor Department Admits Mishap in Release of Jobs Data

By Augusta Saraiva
Bloomberg News
(TNS)

A technical glitch prevented the U.S. government from sharing key payroll data on time last week, according to a spokesperson for the Labor Department, who acknowledged staff provided the numbers to callers before the release was made public.

The episode has prompted steps to beef up data-release protocols at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the DOL agency responsible for releasing high-profile economic reports such as monthly jobs and inflation figures. The incident was the latest in a series of mishaps at the BLS, which has faced renewed criticism from Wall Street firms over its handling and release of market-sensitive data.

The delay of more than a half hour in the publication of preliminary benchmark revisions to payroll numbers by the BLS on Aug. 21 forced staff to manually upload the data, the DOL spokesperson said in an email. While the numbers were not available to external Web users until about 10:32 a.m. in Washington, by 10:10 a.m. BLS employees were able to see them internally on the website, according to the spokesperson.

The problem was compounded by a lack of communication within the bureau over how employees should respond to public inquiries, the spokesperson said. Because the 10 a.m. embargo had passed, some BLS employees who had the information provided it to those who reached out for it.

Going forward, the BLS will make sure that there are multiple forms of distribution for each data release, including social media posts, the spokesperson said, though no further details were provided on that plan. And the agency has implemented a new policy that establishes employees handling data inquiries can only share numbers with clients once senior BLS staff confirm the release is widely available to the public.

Last week’s incident followed others earlier in the year that brought the agency under scrutiny. In May, it inadvertently published consumer price index data 30 minutes early, and a few months before that, records suggested a BLS economist was corresponding with major Wall Street firms on key U.S. inflation data that were not widely available.

The recent setbacks have raised questions about the procedures for disseminating some of the world’s most sensitive economic information, sparking outrage among Wall Street banks that closely scrutinize such government data to get a pulse on the U.S. economy.

BLS data are frequently cited by the media and relied on by businesses, academics and policymakers to inform their decisions. Trends in the nonfarm payroll employment series are watched particularly closely by the Federal Reserve and others to evaluate the labor market and business conditions across a wide array of industries. The Aug. 21 release showed U.S. payrolls are likely to be revised down in the year through March by the most since 2009.

The spokesperson added that the government will announce additional measures in the coming days. The BLS had previously said the DOL’s Office of Inspector General was notified of last week’s incident.

— With assistance from Alex Tanzi.

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