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The 2006–16 projections: How did fast-growing occupations fare?

Elka Torpey | February 2019

Information about future employment helps guide people in making decisions about their careers. That’s why so many people look to employment projections from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). But how can we be sure those projections are reliable?

Periodically, BLS evaluates prior projections. The chart compares projected employment with actual data for the 2006–16 decade in eight occupations that BLS projected to have rapid growth. In all of the occupations in the chart, actual employment growth surpassed the BLS projection. And their rate of employment growth was much faster than the 4-percent average rate for all occupations.

Data in the chart are based on an analysis of the 2006–16 projections. Read more on the projections evaluations page.

For the most recent set of projections, visit www.bls.gov/emp. And you can learn about the occupations shown here, as well as hundreds of others, in the Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH).