From around the world came 150 people to participate in the Seasonal Adjustment Practitioners Workshop (SAPW) at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in November of 2019, which included presentations by participants from Canada and New Zealand. Ninety-five people attended in person and the rest joined remotely from the US, UK, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Austria, and Romania.

Participants shared experiences in producing seasonal adjustments; gave details of interesting time series estimation problems and possible solutions; discussed best practices in seasonal adjustment, time series modeling, or benchmarking; shared lessons learned, tips, and shortcuts; and presented applied research in the practice of time series estimation.

The featured speaker was Jonathan Wright, a professor in the department of economics at The Johns Hopkins University.

Participant feedback was enthusiastic. “Congratulations on a very successful event! As with the first two workshops, the day included very interesting talks, and I came away with many potential connections to make and ideas to explore,” said Steve Matthews of Statistics Canada. “In particular, the remote access via Zoom meeting was very smooth; the quality of the video and audio were both excellent. The remote access was a game-changer for me, and I appreciate the effort your team put in to get it all working ahead of time. I do hope that the series will continue.”

Slides and recordings will be posted on the Government Statistics Section website.

Questions about the workshop can be emailed to esmd.seasonal.workshop@census.gov.