Junior Economist/ Statistician
Are you in search of a rewarding career where you can use your economics and statistical training to support competition studies, other special studies, and general economic analyses? The Oregon Public Utility Commission (PUC) is looking for individuals excited to put their skills to good use to work on important telecommunications topics at the state and federal level.
PUC welcomes interested candidates to apply for the Junior Economist / Statistician vacancy in the agency's Telecommunications and Water Division, Universal Service and Regulatory Analysis Program.
The Telecommunications and Water Division is responsible for promoting competition in local telecommunications markets while maintaining regulatory oversight to achieve Oregon's goals for telecommunication service. The Universal Service and Regulatory Analysis (USRA) Section, is one of two sections residing within the Telecommunications and Water Division.
The USRA section is responsible for fulfilling the Commission's responsibilities for managing the collection and distribution of the State's approximately $30 million dollar Oregon Universal Service Fund (OUSF) that subsidizes the cost of basic telecommunications service in high-cost areas to ensure telecommunications service is available at reasonably comparable and affordable rates throughout the state.
The USRA Section is also responsible for telecommunication related regulatory analysis, which includes the analysis of financial filings and transactions, telecommunications market analysis, and wholesale price filings. These analyses of financial filings and transactions includes activities such as: assisting in the creation of legislative reports regarding the status of competition; developing an annual report based on the analysis of each company's income statement and balance sheet; analyzing each small company's cost allocation filing to determine their underlining OUSF support; reviewing alternative models and techniques for calculating OUSF support; monitoring federal policy and keeping state telecommunications financial statements consistent with federal standards.
DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
Under the direction of the USRA Section Manager and Senior Analysts, the person in this position will critically review economic, statistical, and network-related engineering models in order to analyze telecommunications company data. Analysis performed by the person in this position will support the ongoing review of the status of competition in Oregon's market for telecommunications services.
Major duties include:
- Assist with analysis of the state of competition in Oregon's telecommunications/related voice and data communications industry by identifying data sources, gathering and organizing data, creating summary statistics, and writing reports to provide information for senior management.
- Conduct analyses of quantitative models, including regression analysis, to establish the dollar amount companies are allowed to draw from the OUSF.
- Track and forecast company-specific data and dollar amount of federal support for evaluating the appropriate amount of state support from the OUSF.
- Present technical analysis to the manager and senior analysts, and assist senior analysts with presentations before the Commission and to the companies at workshops.
- Monitor how other states operate their Universal Service Funds and develop reports summarizing the findings. Review and simulate existing federal cost models using statistical packages (e.g., SAS, Shazam, Stata, etc.).
Successful candidates will possess all or most of the following skills:
- Graduate-level Degree in: Economics or Statistics.
- College-level coursework, or work experience, developing analytical and statistical models and critically reviewing models and data sources to validate conclusions.
- College-level coursework, or work experience, reviewing, preparing, and analyzing data using statistical packages for the purposes of creating summary statistics and forecasts.
- College-level coursework, or work experience, interpreting and presenting data and qualitative research and analysis regarding the level of competition in a market.
- Professional-level work experience developing written reports intended to inform or influence decision makers as well as experience with oral presentations that required defending your findings quantitative methods.
- Current knowledge of complex Microsoft Excel spreadsheet functions, such as formulas, linking of tables, macros, Visual Basics for Applications (VBA), etc.
The Oregon Public Utility Commission is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer Committed to Workforce Diversity.