Project Assistant

Result of Service The incumbent is required to:

- submit a roadmap for scanner data implementation; - submit country web scraping templates; - prepare presentations on new data sources, including webscraping, scanner data and others.

Work Location UN-House ESCWA

Expected duration 6 Months

Duties and Responsibilities The project aims at improving, expanding and modernizing economic statistics output in the Arab region by developing new economic indices, sustaining and improving the compilation and dissemination of annual official National Accounts and financial statistics data including CPI and inflation data while sustaining the production of a quarterly inflation monitor, and applying innovative Big Data tools in data collection.

Under the scope of Big Data, the project looks to research new data sources and utilize alternative data collection methods to improve the process of regular price collection in member states through the development of automated tools aiming to reduce the burden on member countries and improve collection frequency and timeliness, and data accuracy. It also looks into improving price index computations through the incorporation of higher levels of detail acquired from scanner data.

The incumbent shall:

- Assist in developing and improving national price web scraping templates; - Assist in training member country representatives on web scraping for price collection; - Assist in researching scanner data application in the Arab region; - Assist in developing python and R libraries and packages for price index computations; - Research other alternative data collection tools; - Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications/special skills A Master’s degree in Data Science, Business Analytics or a relevant area is required.

All candidates must submit a copy of the required educational degree. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed. No previous work experience is required for this job opening. Knowledge of conducting research, knowledge of web scraping techniques and programming and familiarity with the scanner data process is desirable.

Languages English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat; and Arabic is a working language of ESCWA.

For this position, fluency in both English and Arabic is required.

Note: “Fluency” equals a rating of ‘fluent’ in all four areas (speak, read, write, and understand) and “Knowledge of” equals a rating of ‘confident’ in two of the four areas.

Additional Information Recruitment for this position is on a local basis. The incumbent is required to have the legal right to live and work in the specified working location.

No Fee THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.