The employment projections for 2008–18 (EXCERPT), Monthly Labor Review Online, November 2009

The employment projections for 2008–18

Kristina J. Bartsch

Kristina J. Bartsch is Chief, Occupational Outlook Division, Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections, Bureau of Labor Statistics. E-mail: bartsch.kristina@bls.gov

The employment structure of the U.S. economy in 2018 is expected to remain similar to that of 2008, although changes in shares of employment will result from continuing increases or declines among some occupations; in general, goods-producing sectors, excluding agriculture, will lose employment while service-providing sectors will expand.

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This issue of the Monthly Labor Review marks the release of the 2008–18 employment projections of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Four sets of projections are presented in separate articles on the labor force, the U.S. macroeconomy, industry output and employment, and occupational employment. These articles outline the assumptions and rationales underlying expected changes in the economy and present detailed results for each set of projections. For just the second time in the last 30 years, the base-year employment and output of the projections reflect an economy in a deep recession.¹ Among the major highlights of the 2008–18 projections are the following:

Slowdowns in population, labor force, and productivity growth, among other factors, are expected to keep real gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 2.4 percent annually between 2008 and 2018, very close to the 2.5-percent growth seen in the previous decade.
Annual employment growth of 1.0 percent is projected to add about 15.3 million new jobs to the economy by 2018, with total employment growing from 150.9 million to 166.2 million.
The professional and business services sector and the health care and social assistance sector are anticipated to grow at more than twice the annual average of 1.0 percent for all industries, adding the most employment, 4.2 million and 4.0 million, respectively.
Nearly two-thirds of the 30 occupations with the largest expected numerical increase have short-, moderate-, or long-term on-the-job training as their most significant source of education or training.

This excerpt is from an article published in the November 2009 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.

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Footnotes
1 Although the recessions of 1980 and 1990 also occurred during BLS projection base years, those recessions were considered milder—of shorter duration, with lower drops in gross domestic product (GDP), and with relatively lower unemployment rates—than the recession of 1981–82 and the recession beginning in 2007.

Employment Projections

Overview of BLS projections to 2016, An.—Nov. 2007.
Summary of BLS projections to 2014, A.—Nov. 2005.

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