Coursework Brief
You have recently joined a small group of analysts in a company. You have received an email from your line manager (John Smith) requesting a statistical analysis of the labour force and educational data as your first solo piece of work. Your statistical analyses will be used to benchmark equivalent data currently being collected and to support future analyses investigating underlying changes between then and now.
Your analyses on the historical data should be presented in a short report that contains all of the statistical analyses requested by your line manager. The report must contain the technical details of the statistical analyses including any assumptions you have made and the statistical basis for your conclusions. You should also ensure that your technical analyses are supported by a contextual explanation of the findings.
It is important that you produce an impressive report given that this is your first opportunity to showcase your statistical skills. Thus, it is important not only that your analyses are good but also that you present them well in the manner of a business report. See the document “Report Advice” on Moodle.
For the analysis, you have been provided with socioeconomic data from 2018 for a sample of 101 countries in the Excel spreadsheet labour_force2018.xlsx. The countries are also subdivided into six regions of the world.
In the email from your line manager (see below) you have been provided with explicit details on the required analyses.
From: John Smith
Sent: 10 February 2022 14:32
Subject: Labour force Data Analysis
Attachments: labour_force2018.xlsx
I have a small project I’d like you take charge of. It will give you a good opportunity to show us what you are capable of.
It comprises analysis of the 2018 labour force data that we will then take forward for our future consultancy work. The details of the actual analysis I want you to carry out are provided in the attached brief, as is the data you will need.
I need a report that I will be using in a meeting with the directors so please ensure that it clearly explains your findings.
This is an important piece of work for you. While there is plenty of time available to put this report together, please ensure that you schedule enough time to do this alongside your other duties. But I have no doubt that it will be to your usual high standards.
Email me if you have any queries regarding this task.
Best regards,
John
Senior Analyst, Operations Group
Analysis Brief
A selection of socioeconomic data for a sample of 101 countries for 2018 is stored in the Excel workbook labour_force2018.xls in two sheets, Data1 and Data2. The countries are also subdivided into 6 regions of the world:
1 Latin America and Caribbean
2 OECD, prospective members and cooperators
3 East Asia
4 Other Asia
5 Africa
6 Gulf
Your tasks are as follows:
1. Provide a summary statistical analysis of the youth unemployment rate as a proportion of the total youth labour force for the OECD and Africa regions separately (Data1). Compare and discuss these statistics. It would be useful to provide some visualisations to support your analysis. (30% of marks)