Top Data Leadership Jobs Sit Vacant as Trump Administration Purges Statistics
A new report finds that more and more top data jobs within the federal government are vacant.
The report from the Data Foundation tracks monthly changes in the federal government’s data and evaluation infrastructure. What it found raises serious alarms about the government’s ability to legally collect, track, and analyze data, especially as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) aims to create a centralized database of federal data.
As of April 30, the report noted that at least 17 key Evidence Act positions are vacant across multiple agencies, including Evaluation Officers, Chief Data Officers, and Statistical Officials. That includes both permanent and acting positions.
“These vacancies, resulting from resignations, retirements, and reductions-in-force, create governance gaps that impact data quality and availability,” stated the report.
And Data Foundation President and CEO Nick Hart said the number has kept going up in May. Hart says the data executives leaving federal service are “a fantastic cohort of government leaders, many of whom have years to decades of experience navigating the nuances of government data and trying to improve these systems.”
Such positions are critical for implementing the Evidence Act, which President Trump signed into law in 2019. The law was intended to improve data collection, open government data, and the overall use of evidence in decision-making processes, as well as strengthening transparency and accountability.
The Data Foundation report also warned about impacts from the termination of research grants at the National Science Foundation and elsewhere, the reorganization of data units, the disruption of contracts with the private sector, and staff departures at key federal statistical agencies such as the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Data Purge”
Since coming into office, the Trump Administration and DOGE has removed taxpayer-funded data and statistics from a range of government websites, including those involving crime, gender, sexual orientation, education, health care, climate, and global development. Just Security says that more than 8,000 webpages and thousands of datasets have been removed or altered.
Caren Grown, senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution, called it a “data purge” and warned of consequences.
“Policymakers rely on accurate and timely data for a whole range of social, economic, environmental, agricultural, social welfare, so many issues. If we don’t have the ability to collect that information, we just can’t have good planning,” said Grown.
