The Trump administration plans to reform the way employment data is counted

White House officials have revealed that the Trump administration is considering changes to the way the federal government collects and publishes employment data after weak jobs data led to the abrupt dismissal of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics this month, according to the Wall Street Journal. In recent days, White House staff and Labor Department officials have held a series of closed-door meetings to discuss new technologies to improve the efficiency of data collection, according to people familiar with the matter. White House aides said that improving the collection rate for questionnaires surveyed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is one of the goals of reform. Officials said Trump has made it clear that major data revisions will be avoided in the future. White House press secretary Levitt said on Tuesday that the president is reviewing the "statistical methods and processes" behind the employment data. The report said that a change in the statistical method of the non-farm payrolls report released on the first Friday of each month could raise questions about Trump's manipulation of the data for political purposes. The president, who is habitually skeptical of data that does not conform to his worldview, has recently continued to strengthen his control over traditional independent operations and purge career bureaucrats who are seen as disloyal.