An overview of BLS projections to 2016

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 130, Issue 11, 2007, Pages 3-12

  Franklin, James C ^a  

^a BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 37249064695     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Editorial

References (22)

1. The 20 projection groups span projections to 1970, published in 1966, to the current projections to 2016. They represent a unified set of aggregate economic, labor force, industry, and occupational demand projections presented as a series of linked outlook estimates. The occupational demand projections predate these unified sets of projections by 17 years with the first publication of the Occupational Outlook Handbook in 1949. A series of articles published in the May 1999 issue of the Monthly Labor Review takes a comprehensive look at the history of the occupational projections program in BLS. These are available at www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/05/ contents.htm (visited Nov. 19, 2007).
2. See in this issue, Betty Su, "The U.S. economy to 2016: slower growth as boomers begin to retire," pp. 13-32;
3. Mitra Toossi, "Labor force projections to 2016: more workers in their golden years," pp. 33-52;
4. Eric Figueroa and Rose Woods, "Industry output and employment projections to 2016," pp. 53-85;
5. and Arlene Dohm and Lynn Shniper, "Occupational employment projections to 2016: less production, more health care jobs," pp. 86-125.
6. See Su, "The US. economy," for additional disscussion of macroeconomic assumptions.
7. The labor force is defined as the population that is 16 and older at work or actively seeking work. The labor force participation rate is the ratio of the labor force to the population aged 16 and older. The bottom panel of table 1 shows the 0.9-percent increase in the total population.
8. See Table 5: Cumulative Estimates of the Components of Population Change by Race and Hispanic or Latino Origin for the United States: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2006 (NC-EST2006-05), Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, online at http://www.census.gov/popest/national/asrh/ NC-EST2006/NC-EST2006-05.xls (visited Nov. 19, 2007).
9. Nonagricultural wage and salary employment includes data from the Current Employment Statistics survey, except private households, which is from the Current Population Survey.
10. When referencing industry and total industry output, this article uses the gross duplicated output concept. Gross duplicated output includes intermediate as well as final purchases of goods and services. Real output is measured as a 2000 based chain-weighted Fisher index and is used for historical rate of growth comparisons. Real output on an industry basis does not add to their higher level aggregates because of chain weighting. See Charles Steindel, "Chain-weighting: The New Approach to Measuring GDP," Current Issues in Economics and Finance (New York, Federal Reserve Board of New York, December 1995).
11. The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system broadly classifies occupations in one of 23 major groups. This article uses an aggregation of the 23 major groups referred to as the SOC Intermediate Aggregation which is comprised of 11 groups. The groupings, management, business, and financial occupations; professional and related occupations; and service occupations are comprised of selections of the 23 major group levels. Military specific occupations are excluded, and represent a specific grouping under the 23 major groups as well as the intermediate aggregation.
12. See Annual Energy Outlook 2007 (U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency, February 2007), pp 34-35.
13. See Annual Energy Review (U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency, June 2007), table 5.21, p 171.
14. For more information about BLS methods of evaluating offshoring risk, see "Accounting for Offshoring in Occupational Projections," Occupational Projections and Training Data, 2006-2007 Edition, Bulletin 2602 (U.S. Department of Labor, February 2006), pp. 12-15.
15. The BLS Handbook of Methods is available online as a series of chapters in pdf format. The projections program is described in chapter 13 of the Handbook at http://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/pdf/ homch13.pdf (visited Nov. 19, 2007).
16. BLS labor force projections are classified by 136 different groups including gender, 17 age groups, and 4 race and ethnic categories. The race categories include white-only, black-only, Asian-only and "all other." The "all other" group includes all those who claim multiracial backgrounds in addition to the race categories of American Indian, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders. In addition, projections are made of the Hispanic ethnic category and white non-Hispanics.
17. For detail on the extrapolation techniques applied to the labor force participation rates, see Mitra Toossi, "Labor force projection methodology" (unpublished documentation memorandum, Bureau of Labor Statistics). For updates contact Toossi.Mitraβls.gov.
18. Information about Macroeconomic Advisors, LLC, and the products and services they offer, are available online at http://www.macroadvisers.com (visited Nov. 19, 2007).
19. The source data for the input-output model is published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. More information about the data and methods is available online at http://www.bea.gov/industry/ (visited Nov. 19, 2007).
20. For details about the industry employment model, see "A model of detailed industry labor demand" (unpublished documentation memorandum, Bureau of Labor Statistics). For updates contact Woods.Rose. A βls.gov or Figueroa.Ericβls.gov.
21. For the most recent BLS evaluations, see Howard N Fullerton Jr., "Evaluating the BLS labor force projections to 2000," Monthly Labor Review, October 2003, pp. 3-12
22. and Jill Auyer, and Andrew Alpert "Evaluating the BLS 1988-2000 employment projections," Monthly Labor Review, October 2003, pp. 13-37.