Trump picks veteran staffer to head Bureau of Labor Statistics

President Donald Trump plans to nominate economist Brett Matsumoto to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The choice elevates a career staffer to run the federal government’s leading agency for economic statistics, which has been without a commissioner since Trump fired its previous chief on Aug. 1 out of frustration with numbers that showed bad news about the job market.

Matsumoto has worked as an economist at the BLS since 2015. Before...