About Us
Job Trends Associates professionals have been engaged in tracking and projecting the local economy since 1990. For five years we produced D.C. Economy, a newsletter that won favorable notice in the local press for its work tracking the economy of the District. The newsletter featured an innovative index of the D. C. economy. We began to produce employment projections for the District and the surrounding metropolitan area in 1993. Our 1994-2005 occupational projections were the first for the District since the mid-1980s. We have since produced five additional rounds of long-term projections (1996-2006 , 2000-2010, 2002-2012, and 2004-2014) and seven rounds of short-term projections for DOES (1998-2000, 1999-2001, 2000-2002, 2001-2003, 2003-2005, 2004-2007, and 2005-2007). We have also produced a set of 2006-2016 industry projections for the Washington Metropolitan Area. In doing the projections we utilize a variety of statistical time series and econometric methods as well as specialized occupational-projections software. We have also produced for the D.C. Department of Employment Services a tabloid on jobs entitled "Explore the Future in DC: Guide to Information on Careers". The tabloid was distributed through the D.C. schools. We served as consultants to the Workforce Partnership Program at Howard University’s Center for Urban Progress. The program, funded by the Department of Labor, sought to identify and ameliorate skills shortages in the Washington area particularly in Health Care and Information Technology. Our task was to help identify occupations for which the shortages were both acute and addressable in a short-term training program. Work on this project involved survey of local employers. Job Trends Associates monitors local labor markets and produces a monthly report on labor market conditions in DC and the metropolitan area.
Ray Whitman, Economist, Ph'D
Ray D. Whitman, Ph.D., President and Chief Economist
Dr. Whitman is a seasoned economist and project leader with skills in labor economics, statistics and forecasting, macroeconomics intergovernmental finance, and urban public finance. He established Job Trends Associates in 1999 as an institutional vehicle for providing District agencies with expert occupational employment projections and other consulting services. He served on the faculty of the University of the District of Columbia, School of Business and Public Administration from 1985 to 1999 as Professor and as Assistant Dean of the School from 2005-2007. In 1990 he founded the Center for Business and Economic Statistics at the University of the District of Columbia which he directed for nearly ten years and from which he completed a number of consulting contracts for District agencies. He has also worked for BearingPoint as Senior Consultant and Team Director in Intergovernmental Finance for the USAID-funded Economic Reconstruction Project in Iraq. He previously served as Senior Research Associate at Decision Information Systems Corporation, a District based consulting firm, and the Urban Institute, both of which conducted research studies for numerous government and private sector clients. He had earlier experience as Research Associate at the University of Maryland’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research where he worked on a Maryland State tax study and other projects. He has held professorial appointments at two other major area universities: American University and University of Maryland at College Park. Dr. Whitman did his undergraduate and graduate studies in economics at Columbia University from which he holds bachelor and doctoral degrees.
Fred Siegmund, Economist, Ph'D
Fred Siegmund, PhD, Senior Economist
Dr. Siegmund is a staff economist for Job Trends Associates. He has a PhD in economics from Oklahoma State University. He has taught economics and econometrics at several universities. He is author or co-author of books and monographs on a variety of subjects including the effects of privatization on labor markets, skills shortages, job training, zoning, regional production indexes, impact analysis and labor market forecasting. He is experienced with survey research and has participated in regional and national surveys and analysis. He is an experienced user of EViews statistical software, Microsoft Access and FoxPro database software. He is an expert on Microsoft Excel and Visual Basic for Excel.
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