The internal watchdog at the United State's Labor Department has launched an investigation over “challenges” the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) faces in getting data.
The Labor Department's Office of Inspector General said in a letter to acting commissioner, William Wiatrowsky, that the review was launched specifically in response to weak job growth numbers in a monthly report.
This follows President Donald Trump's firing of the head of BLS, Erika McEntarfer, in early August, when he claimed that the weaker-than-expected numbers were being falsified to make him look bad.
Trump then installed EJ Antoni, an economist at a conservative think tank, who has previously called the numbers gathered by the BLS "phoney baloney".
The latest Labor Department report, published on Tuesday, showed that the U.S. economy had added 911,000 fewer jobs than initial estimates in the 12 months to March this year.
The revisions were the largest on record in over 20 years.
