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Bureau of Labor Statistics > Employment Projections > Data

Occupational Projections Evaluation: 2002–2012

The main factor affecting occupational growth rates is the growth rate of the industries in which they are employed. But over time, industries also change the mix of occupations used to create their output. Occupational projections incorporate changes to both those factors. For more information, refer to our evaluation methodology.

Measuring Accuracy

How often did BLS correctly project growth and decline for occupations?

BLS correctly projected whether an occupation would grow or decline 84 percent of the time.

What did BLS project as the average growth rate from 2002 to 2012?

The projected average growth rate for occupations from 2002 to 2012 was 14.8 percent.

What was the actual average growth rate?

The actual average growth rate for occupations from 2002 to 2012 was 0.9 percent.

What contributed to the difference?

The recession of 2007–2009 reduced employment and slowed employment growth. Employment levels and the unemployment rate had not yet recovered from the recession. BLS projections assume full employment.

Was BLS able to project which occupations would grow relatively faster in spite of the differences between projected and actual growth?

BLS correctly projected which occupations would grow faster than the economy as a whole 57 percent of the time.

A standard for comparison

An important way to evaluate any projection is to compare it against other, similar projections. This is not possible for occupational projections because there are no comparable projections which are not in some way derived from BLS projections. When no comparable projection exists another way of evaluating is to compare against a naïve model. The occupational evaluation uses the occupational–share naïve model.

Different aspects of projections

In addition to detailed occupations, occupational projections were evaluated for:

Projections of major occupational groups
Projections of occupations combined based on the level of education and training BLS assigned in 2002

These two evaluations show how well BLS projected groups of related occupations.

Each was compared to the occupational–share naïve model by summing the absolute differences from the actual result.

Table 1. Major occupational groups, combined scorecard
Measure	BLS	Naïve	Which performed better
Sum of absolute differences	6.7%	11.1%	BLS has a smaller sum of absolute differences for all major groups combined
Count of better score	17	5	BLS had a smaller sum of absolute differences for most major group

Table 2. Major occupational groups, sum of absolute differences
Occupational group	BLS	Naïve	Which performed better
Management occupations	0.88	0.94	BLS
Business and financial operations occupations	0.45	0.56	BLS
Computer and mathematical occupations	0.29	0.40	BLS
Architecture and engineering occupations	0.40	0.37	Occupational-Share Naïve
Life, physical, and social science occupations	0.16	0.17	BLS
Community and social services occupations	0.26	0.31	BLS
Legal occupations	0.05	0.06	BLS
Education, training, and library occupations	0.46	0.34	Occupational-Share Naïve
Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations	0.36	0.38	BLS
Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations	0.31	0.53	BLS
Healthcare support occupations	0.23	0.47	BLS
Protective service occupations	0.09	0.11	BLS
Food preparation and serving related occupations	1.32	1.45	BLS
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations	0.09	0.16	BLS
Personal care and service occupations	0.70	0.83	BLS
Sales and related occupations	0.92	1.05	BLS
Office and administrative support occupations	2.59	2.75	BLS
Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations	0.07	0.07	Occupational-Share Naïve
Construction and extraction occupations	1.11	1.12	BLS
Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations	0.48	0.47	Occupational-Share Naïve
Production occupations	1.01	1.57	BLS
Transportation and material moving occupations	0.96	0.85	Occupational-Share Naïve

Issues evaluating occupational projections

Data compared here were affected by the introduction of the 2010 Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) system which resulted in 81 out of 840 occupations not being comparable between 2002 and 2012. Definitional changes associated with the new classification system may also have had a limited impact on occupations that were deemed comparable.

Coverage of employment changed in 2008 when Employment Projections stopped producing estimates for secondary employment.

The 2002–2012 projections included 29 non–SOC occupations which were not collected by the OES program in subsequent years. Without 2012 employment levels, no comparison was possible for these occupations.

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Last Modified Date: March 16, 2020