Federal Statistical Agencies Face Staffing Losses as Congress Weighs Hearing
How bad is the staffing situation at federal statistical agencies? What could it mean for the government's ability to produce timely, accurate data on jobs, education, agriculture, the economy, and more? And what impact could it have on governments and the private sector, which rely on those reports?
Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA)-- ranking member of the House Education and Workforce Committee – is asking for the committee’s chairman– Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI)-- to hold a hearing into the current state of federal statistical agencies, following reports of staffing cuts and leadership vacancies.
“I ask that you schedule a hearing in September so that Committee Members have the opportunity to hear about the erosion of our nation’s federal statistical infrastructure and better understand the downstream effects of poorer data quality and less frequent product releases,” wrote Rep. Scott in the letter.
Staffing Cuts
This comes after a report from the American Statistical Association found that all 13 principal federal statistical agencies have seen staffing cuts since the start of the Trump administration. Two of the agencies lost more than two-thirds of their employees and six others lost at least one-third of their headcount. The staff declines have led to halted projects and reports, low response rates, and decreased data production.
The report says that while “hiring has resumed at seven agencies, current recruitment has barely begun to offset earlier losses and does not immediately address the loss of expertise and experience that occurred in last year’s downsizing.”
The report also notes that as of July 1, 2026, only six of the 13 agencies are headed by permanent, non-acting leaders.
Three Agencies in Focus
Rep. Scott requested that the hearing focus on the three statistical agencies under the committee’s purview: the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service (ERS), the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).
The USDA Economic Research Service is planning to relocate employees to Kansas City this fall. Federal employees groups and labor unions are suing to block that move.
The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which operates within the department’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), lost nearly all its employees last year as the Trump administration aimed to dismantle the broader Department of Education.
In a statement to GovExec, the department said that NCES was in “need of reform” and that it “is committed to ensuring that IES delivers usable, high-quality statistics, data, and resources for educators, researchers, and other stakeholders.”
Meanwhile, the prior BLS director was fired by President Trump after the agency released a monthly jobs report showing weaker-than-expected job growth. Earlier in August, Brett Matsumoto was confirmed as the new permanent leader.
BLS also announced that it would no longer produce monthly state-by-state data snapshots of job openings, hiring, layoffs and workers quitting their jobs, and will now publish monthly estimates for the prior year in annual data releases.
No word yet on whether Rep. Walberg will schedule the hearing.
