2​​​024 Joint Statistical Meetings in Portland

M​RSD​​​​​​ headed to Portland this August to take part in North America’s largest event for statisticians, the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM). Held from 3 – 8 August this year, the JSM attracted more than 5,000 attendees who participated in over 600 sessions covering a broad range of topics in statistics. The exhibitions included discussions on statistical applications, methodology and theory, as well as analytics and data science. As a regular participant in this conference, MRSD is committed to contributing to this diverse array of subjects. Last year​, we presented on social media content creators and the use of administrative data. This year, we brought in two new poster presentations that address current, relevant discussions within the global statistics community.
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Our first poster presentation focused on ‘Youth Employment in Singapore’. The topic on youth employment remains highly relevant, especially as youths around the world recover from the effects of COVID-19 on employment prospects. We shared statistics on youth employment in Singapore, such as on their occupational breakdown and employment benefits. Additionally, we discussed measures implemented locally that have helped us to improve youth employment prospects.

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Our second presentation centred around the topic of ‘Transforming Data Collection for the Gig Economy’. The gig economy (or platform economy) is an emerging topic of interest worldwide, with many leading statistical agencies seeking to improve their methodology and data collection processes in this area. As one of the world pioneers in the measurement and reporting of statistics on digital platform employment, MRSD was able to share a unique point of view on the situation with representatives from other international statistical agencies.

The attendees at this convention represented 52 countries, and we were honoured to engage with a myriad of delegates, including representatives from the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, the U.S. Bureau of Transport Statistics, and the Spanish National Bank. Many showed keen interest in our posters, remarking that we presented a meaningful blend of statistical methodology and real-world applications of statistics.

The interactions with other delegates and insights gained during the conference highlighted a key distinction of MRSD – unlike other purely statistical agencies, we have a very strong focus on policy and real-world applications from the statistics we produce. This approach means that we are always reminded to tie the results of our work back to how the information can help the Singaporean public, while still furthering the boundaries of knowledge. We were glad to be reminded that there is a deeper purpose to our work, and we look forward to making valuable contributions once again at next year’s conference. ​