Research Economist 4
About the Office of Research and Information (ORI)
We are NJ’s premier source for economic, labor market, and demographic data and analysis. We drive innovation by embracing diversity, creative thinking, and collaboration with internal and external stakeholders. ORI’s services and solutions help New Jerseyans – students, jobseekers, business owners, and policy makers alike – make informed, data-driven decisions. Our team is responsible for:
• Developing, analyzing, and disseminating labor market and demographic data;
• Preparing reports for the State and Federal government agencies that fund Labor’s workforce and worker benefit programs;
• Providing performance measurement, business intelligence, and evaluation services that promote the continuous improvement of Labor programs
• Developing user-centric digital tools to guide New Jerseyans’ career planning activities;
• Overseeing the review and approval of New Jersey’s private career schools and maintain the Eligible Training Provider List; and
• Serving as the data backbone for strategic enforcement and compliance activities undertaken by Labor’s worker protection programs.
About the Role
This supervisory position will be assigned to the first ever Unit of the Chief Economist at the Department of Labor, which collects and analyzes economic data and works on special projects such as conducting an empirical study on the effects of the minimum wage on employment. This position will closely monitor the editing of wage data by occupation received from New Jersey employers to ensure the accuracy of the information being reported.
Job duties include:
• Develop a schedule of economic updates that are regularly released to inform the workforce managers within NJDOL, the State Workforce Board, the local Workforce Development Boards, and Employment Services and One-Stop managers.
• Disseminate the economic data and reports and provide specific and close-to- real-time insights on emerging and existing conditions that affect the labor market.
• Develop the mode and format of delivering these data including narrative content that explains, in lay terms, the implications of the data to the state’s labor market.
• Deliver at least one report that synthesizes a topic of relevance to the labor market (e.g., childcare, hybrid work) every year.
• Supervise two junior economists.