George Rao

George Rao is an Economist at KPMG. George conducts economic analyses on the labor market and other areas to support the team. George also designs, builds, and improves traditional econometric and machine learning projects to enhance economic analysis. Beyond traditional macroeconomic data, George specializes in deriving information from micro-level datasets to complement research results.

Prior to joining KPMG, George worked as the principal research economist at the Utah Department of Workforce Services. He created and published in-depth studies on the Utah workforce to inform decisions by policy makers and the public. He also closely worked with other divisions in conducting data science research using machine learning algorithms and programming tools such as SQL, R, and Python.

Since 2019, George has been an adjunct professor at Salt Lake Community College. He has taught many courses including Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, and Economics as a Social Science to students with diverse backgrounds.

George received his MA in economics from Southern Methodist University. Prior to that, he was a triple major in economics, finance, and mathematics at the University of Utah. George is a Certified Business Economist (CBE) designee and a member of the National Association for Business Economics.

Past projects

• Analyzed labor market and industry indicators for economic forecasting and the highly-demanded chartbook products.
• Automated data collecting processes via API and web scraping to increase data access productivity
• Verified government and private third-party datasets for producing high-frequency chartbooks
• Leveraged KPMG data science infrastructure to work on micro-level datasets through writing scripts and implementing machine learning techniques in R
• Informed both KPMG internal teams and external clients on the state of the economy through various engagement channels.