Jack Welch may not have been so off the mark after all. The former General Electric CEO was pilloried back in October 2012 when he suggested that the previous month's unemployment report smelled fishy and perhaps had been manipulated. (Read more: Welch's tweet and the jobs number conspiracy)

A report Tuesday, though, suggested that the data may well have been manipulated, though it's not as clear—as Welch charged—that political motivations were afoot. An employee in the Census Bureau, under pressure to make the required amount of interviews to formulate the monthly nonfarm payrolls report, allegedly fabricated interviews that consequently made the unemployment rate slide from 8.1 percent to 7.8 percent, according to the New York Post. That drop was highly consequential because it was the next-to-last reading on the jobs market before the November presidential election.

(Read more: Shutdown slowdown? Job creation soars in October)

Shortly after the numbers came out, the outspoken Welch attacked their veracity in a post on Twitter. "Unbelievable jobs numbers...these Chicago guys will do anything...can't debate so change numbers," he tweeted then.

Reaction was swift and severe. Former White House economist Austan Goolsbee tweeted to Welch, "you've lost your mind." Labor Secretary Hilda Solis called the charge "ridiculous." Reactions throughout much of the blogosphere were similar. To be sure, Welch's accusations weren't especially specific, and the night before the Oct. 5 release he suggested that the data-fudging could pertain more to the labor force participation rate. He declined further comment through a spokeswoman Tuesday. (Read more: Fake figures may have greased US jobs data: Report) The Post's revelations, though, were no less shocking, in particular because the writer spoke to the actual Census Bureau employee who essentially admitted the numbers in the Philadelphia region had been manipulated. "This seems to be completely unprecedented. I've never heard of this," said Alan Tonelson, research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council in Washington. "It needs the most thorough investigation, ASAP."