Last week, the U.S. government was delayed in releasing key nonfarm payroll revisions due to a technical glitch, according to a Labor Department spokesman, who acknowledged that staff provided the data to callers before it was publicly released.
The incident prompted the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Labor Department agency responsible for publishing high-profile economic reports such as monthly U.S. nonfarm payrolls and inflation data, to tighten data release protocols. The incident is the latest in a series of missteps by the BLS, which has been criticized by Wall Street firms for frequent errors in processing and publishing market-sensitive data.
The BLS released preliminary benchmark revisions to nonfarm payrolls more than half an hour late on Aug. 21, forcing staff to manually upload the data, the spokesperson said. Although the numbers became visible to BLS employees on the website internally at 10:10 a.m. Washington time, they were not available to external web users until about 10:32 a.m., according to the spokesperson.
The spokesman said the problem also included a lack of communication within the bureau, which led to disagreements among employees about how to respond to public inquiries. Because the 10 o'clock moratorium had passed, some BLS employees gave information to people who requested data from them.
Going forward, the BLS will ensure that multiple forms of dissemination are available for each data release, including social media posts, the spokesperson said, but did not provide further details about the plan.
In addition, the agency has implemented a new policy requiring employees who handle data inquiries to share data with clients only after senior staff confirm that the data has been widely released to the public.
Last week's incident was not the first time the BLS has made a mistake this year. In May, the agency accidentally released CPI data 30 minutes early. In the months before that, BLS economists were recorded communicating with major Wall Street firms about key U.S. inflation data that had not yet been widely released.
The latest episode raised questions about the department’s procedures for releasing the world’s most sensitive economic information and sparked anger among Wall Street banks, which closely monitor such government data for the pulse of the U.S. economy.
BLS data are frequently cited in the media and used by businesses, academics and policymakers to inform their decisions. Trends in nonfarm payrolls are particularly closely watched by the Federal Reserve and others to assess labor market and business conditions across a broad range of industries. Data released on August 21 showed that U.S. nonfarm payrolls for the year ending in March are likely to see the largest downward revision since 2009.
The spokesman added that the administration will announce additional measures in the coming days. The BLS previously said the Labor Department's Office of Inspector General had been notified of last week's incident.
Article forwarded from: Jinshi Data
