Dec 6 -- The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) requests for nominations for membership on the BLS Technical Advisory Committee. The BLS is soliciting new members for the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to address six member terms expiring on April 11, 2022, and any vacancy that may occur on the TAC between the date of publication of this notice and April 11, 2022. Nominations should be submitted by January 20, 2022.
The TAC provides advice to the Bureau of Labor Statistics on technical aspects of data collection and the formulation of economic measures and makes recommendations on areas of research. On some technical issues, there are differing views and receiving feedback at public meetings provides BLS with the opportunity to consider all viewpoints.
The Committee consists of 16 members chosen from a cross-section of economists, statisticians, and behavioral scientists who represent a balance of expertise. The economists have research experience with technical issues related to BLS data and are familiar with employment and unemployment statistics, price index numbers, compensation measures, productivity measures, occupational and health statistics, or other topics relevant to BLS data series. The statisticians are familiar with sample design, data analysis, computationally intensive statistical methods, nonsampling errors, or other areas which are relevant to BLS work. The behavioral scientists are familiar with questionnaire design, usability, or other areas of survey development. BLS is also interested in persons who have expertise in data science, regardless of their main field of study.
The Bureau often faces highly technical issues while developing and maintaining the accuracy and relevancy of its data on employment and unemployment, prices, productivity, and compensation and working conditions. These issues range from how to develop new measures to how to make sure that existing measures account for the ever-changing economy. BLS presents issues and then draws on the specialized expertise of Committee members representing specialized fields within the academic disciplines of economics, statistics, and survey design. Committee members are also invited to bring to the attention of BLS issues that have been identified in the academic literature or in their own research.
The TAC was established to provide advice to the Commissioner of Labor Statistics on technical topics selected by the BLS. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to providing comments on papers and presentations developed by BLS research and program staff, conducting research on issues identified by BLS on which an objective technical opinion or recommendation from outside of BLS would be valuable, recommending BLS conduct internal research projects to address technical problems with BLS statistics that have been identified in the academic literature, participating in discussions of areas where the types or coverage of economic statistics could be expanded or improved and areas where statistics are no longer relevant, and establishing working relationships with professional associations with an interest in BLS statistics, such as the American Statistical Association and the American Economic Association.
TAC webpage @ BLS:
https://www.bls.gov/advisory/tac.htm
TAC webpage @ FACAdatabase:
https://www.facadatabase.gov/FACA/apex/FACAPublicCommittee?id=a10t0000001gzqMAAQ
FR notice inviting nominations:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/12/06/2021-26343/technical-advisory-committee-request-for-nominations