Labor force projections to 2020: A more slowly growing workforce

Monthly Labor Review

Volumn 135, Issue 1, 2012, Pages 43-64

  Toossi, Mitra ^a  

^a BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84861218883     PISSN: 00981818     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. Attributed to the 19th-century French philosopher Auguste Comte. The idea is that the social, cultural, and economic fabric of a nation derives in large part from its population dynamics.
2. The civilian labor force consists of employed and unemployed persons actively seeking work, but does not include any Armed Forces personnel. Historical data for this series are from the Current Population Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
3. The Census Bureau recommends its 2008 national population projections for data users
4. (See "U.S. Population Projections: 2008 National Population Projections" (U.S. Census Bureau, Aug. 14, 2008), http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/2008projections. html).
5. The 2009 national population projections are a supplemental series to the 2008 projections and lack the detailed age, gender, racial and ethnic data needed for the BLS labor force projections. All other methods and assumptions, including those relating to mortality and fertility, are the same in the 2009 projections as in the 2008 projections. The 2009 series is useful for analyzing potential outcomes of different levels of net international migration.
6. See "U.S. Population Projections: Methodology Statement for the 2008 National Population Projections, United States Population Projections by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: July 1, 2000-2050" (U.S. Census Bureau, no date), http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/methodstatement08.html.
7. For more information, see "Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity" (Office of Management and Budget, Oct. 30, 1997), http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards.
8. In Census Bureau projections, fertility rates were calculated from National Center for Health Statistics birth data and Census Bureau estimates of the female population
9. Census Bureau mortality time series data are calculated on the basis of National Center for Health Statistics data on deaths and the Census Bureau population estimates for 1984 through 2003
10. See "Population projections: Interim Projections of the U.S. Population by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin: Summary Methodology and Assumptions" (U.S. Census Bureau, no date), http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/usinterimproj/idbsummeth.html.
11. The civilian noninstitutional population does not include the Armed Forces and comprises all persons 16 years and older who are neither inmates nor in penal or mental institutions, sanitariums, or homes for the aged
12. The Armed Forces estimates are arrived at with the use of data from the Department of Defense and under assumptions about the distribution of military personnel by demographic category
13. The Current Population Survey, a monthly survey of households, is conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The survey provides statistics on the employment and labor force status of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years and older and is collected from a probability sample of approximately 60,000 households.
14. See the following Monthly Labor Review articles by Mitra Toossi: "A century of change: the U.S. labor force, 1950-2050," May 2002, pp. 15-28, http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2002/05/art2full.pdf.
15. "A new look at long-term labor force projections to 2050," November 2006, pp. 19-39, http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2006/11/art3full. pdf.
16. See Abraham Mosisa and Steven Hipple, "Trends in labor force participation in the United States," Monthly Labor Review, October 2006, pp. 35-57, http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2006/10/art3full.pdf.
17. See Teresa L. Morisi, "The early 2000s: a period of declining teen summer employment rates," Monthly Labor Review, May 2010, pp. 23-35, http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2010/05/art2full.pdf.
18. See Andrew Sum and Ishwar Khatiwada, with Sheila Palma, The Age Twist in Employment Rates in the U.S., 2000-2004: The Steep Tilt Against Young Workers in the Nation's Labor Markets, report prepared for Jobs for America's Graduates, Alexandria, VA (Boston, Northeastern University, Center for Labor Market Studies, January 2005), http://www.aypf.org/publications/EmploymentRatesofyoungworkers.pdf.
19. Entrants and leavers are computed by comparing the labor force numbers for birth cohorts at two points in time. If a given cohort has more labor force participants at the second point than at the first, the difference is termed the entrants. If the cohort has fewer labor force participants at the second point, the difference is the leavers. These concepts understate the numbers likely to enter and leave the labor force over the period covered by the two points in time, but are still a valid comparison.
20. For a further discussion of the methods, see Howard N Fullerton, Jr., "Measuring Rates of Labor Force Dynamics," Proceedings of the Social Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association (Alexandria, VA, American Statistical Association, 1993).
21. See Howard N Fullerton, Jr., and Mitra Toossi, "Labor force projections to 2010: steady growth and changing composition," Monthly Labor Review, November 2001, pp. 21-38, http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2001/11/art2full.pdf.
22. See "U.S. POPClock Projection" (U.S. Census Bureau, updated monthly), http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html.