Summary The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) measures labor market activity, working conditions, price changes, and productivity in the U.S. economy to support public and private decision making. This position is located in the Department of Labor (DOL), Bureau of Labor Statistics, Office of Field Operations (OFO). This position is inside the bargaining unit. THIS IS NOT A REMOTE POSITION. Please review the Additional Information section of this announcement for specific location information. Responsibilities The BLS headquarters is currently located in Washington, D.C. but is in the process of relocating within the National Capital Area to the Suitland Federal Center in Suitland, Maryland. If selected for this position with an assigned duty station of Washington, D.C., you will have the option to telework from an approved telework site within the locality pay area of Washington, D.C./Baltimore/Arlington while the future headquarters is being built. Upon completion of the new headquarters offices in Suitland, MD, you will be required to report onsite to the Suitland Federal Center for some portion of each pay period after receiving notification to do so. As an Economist/Statistician (Economics), GS-110/1530-13, the duties include but not limited to the following: Reviews methodology and translates the methodology into operationally feasible collection procedures and provides impact analysis on how the procedures affect data collection and training. Assists in developing national collection plans for survey programs including overall workload, position control, resources, budgets, and deliverables to provide survey micro data within parameters of timeliness, quality, response, and productivity. Conducts research on emerging collection issues, diagnoses problems and recommends changes to plans and goals, and implements corrective action; develops appropriate collection targets and monitors and analyses regional performance against plans and targets; assesses the accuracy and consistency of staff decisions to assure valid confidence levels of technical decisions. Identifies, provides, and makes provisions for training needs and resolves technical problems that involve negotiation to settle matters involving issues affecting individual studies and the related procedures or training. Serves as a liaison and provides technical support between regional and national offices on issues, related to assigned surveys; provides regular reports to management and supervisors of staff; maintains information files and records of data research and recommendations and assures collected survey data and other records are posted timely and correctly to the Compensation Quality Re-interview database or other appropriate files. Requirements Conditions of Employment Qualifications BASIC REQUIREMENTS For an Economist, applicants must meet one of the following Basic Requirements: A. Degree: Economics that included at least 21 semester hours in economics and 3 semester hours in statistics, accounting, or calculus. OR B. Combination of Education and Experience: courses equivalent to a major in economics, as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. Examples of qualifying experience include (a) individual economic research assignments requiring planning, information assembly, analysis and evaluation, conclusions and report preparation; (b) supervisory or project coordination assignments involving a staff of professional economists, and requiring the evaluation and interpretation of economic information; or (c) teaching assignments in a college or university that included both class instruction in economic subjects and one of the following: (1) personal research that produced evidence of results, (2) direction of graduate theses in economics, or (3) service as a consultant or advisor on technical economics problems. For a Statistician, applicants must meet one of the following Basic Requirements: A. Degree: that included at 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences; medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc. Credit toward meeting statistical course requirements shall be given for courses in which 50 percent of the course content appears to be statistical methods, e.g., courses that included studies in research methods in psychology or economics such as tests and measurements or business cycles, or courses in methods of processing mass statistical data such as tabulating methods or electronic data processing. OR B. Combination of Education and Experience: courses as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance. You must meet the Basic Requirements listed in the Education Requirements section and the Specialized Experience to qualify for Economist/Statistician (Economics), as described below. SPECIALIZED EXPERIENCE For GS-13: Applicants must have 52 weeks of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level GS-12 in the Federal Service. Specialized Experience is the experience that equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA's) to perform the duties of the position successfully, and that is typically in or related to the position to be filled. For this vacancy, the experience must demonstrate a thorough understanding of economic principles and theories and a wide knowledge of current economic factors and their implications. To be creditable, specialized experience must have been equivalent to at least the next lower grade level. Qualifying specialized experience for this GS-13 position includes: individual economic assignments, such as data collection or data review, that require planning, information assembly, analysis and evaluation, conclusions and report preparation; member of a project team or training team that included developing recommendations for system requirements, recommendations to management for process improvement, and development of training materials or provided mentoring or on-the-job training. Education Any applicant falsely claiming an academic degree from an accredited school will be subject to actions ranging from disqualification from federal employment to removal from federal service. If your education was completed at a foreign college or university, you must show comparability to education received in accredited educational institutions in the United States and comparability to applicable minimum coursework requirements for this position. Click Evaluation of Foreign Education for more information. Additional Information This position is inside the bargaining unit. If the duty location is within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, the position will be included in the Local 12, AFGE bargaining unit. If the duty location is outside the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, the position will be included in the NCFLL bargaining unit. Persons who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or have speech disabilities, please dial 711 to access telecommunications relay services. The mission of the Department of Labor (DOL) is to protect the welfare of workers and job seekers, improve working conditions, expand high-quality employment opportunities, and assure work-related benefits and rights for all workers. As such, the Department is committed to fostering a workplace and workforce that promote equal employment opportunity, reflects the diversity of the people we seek to serve, and models a culture of respect, equity, inclusion, and accessibility where every employee feels heard, supported, and empowered. Refer to these links for more information: GENERAL INFORMATION, REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION, ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION, FORMER FEDERAL EMPLOYEES The Fair Chance Act (FCA) prohibits Federal agencies from requesting an applicant's criminal history information before the agency makes a conditional offer of employment. If you believe a DOL employee has violated your rights under the FCA, you may file a complaint of the alleged violation following our agency's complaint process Guidelines for Reporting Violations of the Fair Chance Act Note: The FCA does not apply to some positions specified under the Act, such as law enforcement or national security positions. As a condition of employment, all personnel must undergo a background investigation for access to DOL facilities, systems, information and/or classified materials before they can enter on duty: BACKGROUND INVESTIGATION Full Promotion Potential: This position is at the Full-Performance Level (FPL). Telework or Telework Positions: Eligibility is determined by management based on position duties during the recruitment process. Employee participation in telework on a routine or situational basis is determined by management primarily based on business needs. Employees participating in telework are subject to the terms and conditions of the Department of Labor's Telework Program. Based on agency needs, additional positions may be filled using this vacancy. Department of Labor may use certain incentives and hiring flexibilities, currently offered by the Federal government to attract highly qualified candidates. Additional information is available here. LOCATION: This position can be filled in the BLS National Office in Washington, D.C. or any BLS Regional Office location. The locations of the BLS Regional Offices are the following: Atlanta, GA Boston, MA Chicago, IL Dallas, TX Philadelphia, PA San Francisco, CA