By Lucia Mutikani
WASHINGTON, June 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will next Wednesday hold a confirmation hearing for Brett Matsumoto, the White House’s nominee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Matsumoto was tapped by President Donald Trump to replace Erika McEntarfer, whom he dismissed last August. Trump accused McEntarfer, without evidence, of manipulating July’s employment report, which showed unexpectedly slow employment growth and massive downward revisions to the nonfarm payrolls counts for the prior two months.
Trump initially picked conservative economist E.J. Antoni, a critic of the BLS, to head the agency but withdrew the nomination amid opposition from some Republicans. Private economists had expressed worries over the trustworthiness of BLS-produced data following the firing of McEntarfer.
Matsumoto holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. An inflation expert, Matsumoto joined the BLS in 2015, and is on leave to work at the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci )
Comments