Job no: 508558
Position type: Staff Full Time
Campus: UMass President's Office
Campus Location: Beacon Street-Boston
Department: Academic Affairs
Categories: Other Staff Positions
Advertised: Jun 07 2021 Eastern Daylight Time
Applications close:

Job Summary:

Academic Affairs within the University of Massachusetts President’s Office is seeking a Senior Economic Data Analyst to join our team of institutional research and data analytic experts. Reporting to the Chief Data Strategist and Director of the Analytics Group, you will be responsible for supporting our capabilities to analyze labor markets and identify areas of strength and new opportunities across UMass’ academic portfolio of offerings (both in-person and online). You will possess experience working with labor market employment data, an interest in the improvement of higher education, and the ability to communicate your findings to non-technical audiences.

Essential Functions:

Provides local and national labor market data and reports to UMass administrators and planners in education and economic development. Such efforts may include (but will not be limited to):

• Exploring national, state-level, and regional data on industrial/occupational growth patterns to inform new program development opportunities (both in-person and online);
• Preparing competitive scans of educational offerings through a review of program characteristics, course offerings, tuition pricing, and degree completion data;
• Tracking outcomes of students who leave UMass;
• Maintaining contact with regional employers to sharpen our understanding of the skill sets they are looking to hire at present and in the future; and
• Analyzing post-graduation employment and earnings trajectories.

Coordinates the dissemination of labor market information and related economic conditions by producing special data sets for UMass educators, economic development personnel and the public.

Keeps abreast of developments and impending federal and state directives related to labor market trends, analysis techniques, and reporting requirements.

Support our unit, as needed, through compiling and producing reports and statistical tables that describe our university to internal and external audiences, including government agencies and external ranking agencies.

• Assist in the compilation and review of our data submissions to government agencies and external ranking agencies.
• Lead efforts to improve efficiency of this process through developing macros, scripts, and other automated procedures.
• Improve quality and usability of reporting deliverables.

Support our research efforts designed to examine specific/ad hoc issues for internal and external audiences. Such efforts may include (but will not be limited to):

• Exploring national, state-level, and regional data on industrial/occupational growth patterns to inform new program development opportunities (both in-person and online);
• Preparing competitive scans of educational offerings through a review of program characteristics, course offerings, tuition pricing, and degree completion data; and
• Tracking outcomes of students who leave UMass.

Contribute to the development and execution of our UMass enterprise analytic strategy, including data access, security, and governance.

• Support the Chief Data Strategist by participating in key internal meetings to discuss and execute on strategy and tactics.
• Conduct supplementary background research as needed, such as reviewing policy documents from other systems and third-party vendors.
• Document and communicate systems/analytics changes, translating complex functionality into business relevant language.

Present findings to internal and external audiences, as needed.

Other Functions:

• If appropriate, publish results in academic journals and policy outlets, as well as present at conferences to enhance visibility of the President’s Office as a source of innovation.
• Other duties as assigned.

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience):

• Master’s degree in Economics, Labor Economics, Quantitative Sociology or a related field with a quantitative analytics focus or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 2 years of experience with economic analysis, particularly in the field of labor markets.
• Knowledge of R, Python, SAS, SPSS, STATA or similar tool set for data extraction, manipulation, and analysis.
• Experience using labor market data sets, such as Bureau of Labor Statistics, EMSI, Burning Glass, and others.
• Experience using descriptive statistics (mean, median, mode, and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (correlations, regressions, t-tests, and f-tests / analysis of variance).
• Excellent communication skills and experience presenting findings to decision-makers.
• Ability to collaborate with internal and external audiences, work effectively and independently on multiple priorities with clear deadlines.
• Experience working with both business users and technical development teams.
• Ability to carefully document analytics and procedures.

Preferred Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, Education, Experience):

• Advanced degree in Economics, Labor Economics, Quantitative Sociology or a related field with a quantitative analytics focus.
• Prior experience working in higher education sector or linking academic programs to labor markets.
• A strong belief in transparent, explainable analysis.
• Experience working with data visualization.
• Experience working databases as well as structured and unstructured data sets.

Working Conditions:

• Standard office work place, located in Boston, MA.
• Must be able to independently travel to University campuses in Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, Worcester, and Shrewsbury.

Additional Details:

Salary up to $90,000.