An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Bureau of Labor Statistics > Employment Projections > Data

Occupational Projections Evaluation: 2014–24

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 the evaluation methodology.

Measuring Accuracy

How often did BLS correctly project growth and decline for occupational groups?

BLS correctly projected whether an occupational group would grow or decline 86 percent of the time.

What did BLS project as the average growth rate for occupations from 2014 to 2024?

The projected average growth rate for occupations from 2014 to 2024 was 6.5 percent.

What was the actual average growth rate for occupations?

The actual average growth rate for occupations from 2014 to 2024 was 12.9 percent.

What contributed to the difference?

Recovery and expansion in the years following the Great Recession¹ and the later COVID-19 pandemic² contributed to actual average growth rates exceeding the projected average growth rate. BLS projections assume stable GDP growth and a full-employment labor market in the target (end) year³.

How accurate were the projected growth rates compared with the actual growth rates for the major occupational groups?

For the 22 major occupational groups, BLS projected that 4 would have slower than average growth than the economy (less than 4.5 percent), 10 would have as fast as average growth (4.5 to 8.5 percent), 6 would have above average growth (more than 8.5 percent), and 2 were projected to decline. Actual growth rates showed 3 groups had slower than average growth, 1 had average growth, 14 showed above average growth, and 4 had employment declines.

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, which assumes that the overall proportion of each occupation in the economy was not projected to change over the 10-year period.

Different aspects of projections

Occupational projections were evaluated for:

Projections of major occupational groups (See Table 1 and Table 3.)
Projections of detailed occupations (See Table 2.)
Projections of occupations combined based on the level of education, experience, and training BLS assigned in 2014 (See Table 4.)

These evaluations show how well BLS projected groups of related occupations. Each was compared with the occupational–share naïve model by summing the absolute differences from the actual result. A lower value indicates a more accurate projection.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Table 1. Major occupational groups, combined scorecard
Measure	BLS	Naïve	Best performer
Sum of absolute differences of employment shares	9.6	11.5	BLS
Count of better score	13	9	BLS
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Table 2. Detailed occupations, combined scorecard
Measure	BLS	Naïve	Best performer
Sum of absolute differences of employment shares	19.6	21.1	BLS
Count of better score	475	345	BLS
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Table 3. Major occupational groups, absolute differences in employment shares
Occupational group	BLS	Naïve	Best performer
Management	2.17	2.11	Occupational-Share Naïve
Business and financial operations	1.13	1.22	BLS
Computer and mathematical	0.45	0.62	BLS
Architecture and engineering	0.06	0.12	BLS
Life, physical, and social science	0.03	0.02	Occupational-Share Naïve
Community and social services	0.18	0.24	BLS
Legal	0.01	0.00	Occupational-Share Naïve
Education, training, and library	0.41	0.35	Occupational-Share Naïve
Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media	0.06	0.02	Occupational-Share Naïve
Healthcare practitioners and technical	0.04	0.55	BLS
Healthcare support	0.46	0.02	Occupational-Share Naïve
Protective service	0.02	0.06	BLS
Food preparation and serving related	0.16	0.16	Occupational-Share Naïve
Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance	0.36	0.37	BLS
Personal care and service	0.37	0.62	BLS
Sales and related	1.55	1.69	BLS
Office and administrative support	1.44	2.07	BLS
Farming, fishing, and forestry	0.02	0.05	BLS
Construction and extraction	0.03	0.11	BLS
Installation, maintenance, and repair	0.05	0.05	Occupational-Share Naïve
Production	0.29	0.84	BLS
Transportation and material moving	0.30	0.20	Occupational-Share Naïve
Note: Ties are broken using unrounded data. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Table 4. Education, experience, and training, absolute differences in employment shares
Education, experience, and training classification	BLS	Naïve	Best performer
Education
No formal educational credential	4.75	5.13	BLS
High school diploma or equivalent	6.59	7.19	BLS
Some college, no degree	0.14	0.34	BLS
Associate's degree	0.36	0.36	BLS
Bachelor's degree	5.83	6.21	BLS
Master's degree	0.47	0.55	BLS
Postsecondary nondegree award	1.04	0.97	Occupational-Share Naïve
Doctoral or professional degree	0.42	0.39	Occupational-Share Naïve
Work experience in a related occupation
No related work experience	15.49	16.75	BLS
Less than 5 years	2.28	2.47	BLS
5 years or more	1.83	1.92	BLS
Typical on-the-job training
No on-the-job training	7.99	8.45	BLS
Short-term on-the-job training	7.45	7.9	BLS
Moderate-term on-the-job training	2.85	3.38	BLS
Long-term on-the-job training	0.54	0.6	BLS
Apprenticeship	0.17	0.2	BLS
Internship/residency	0.59	0.61	BLS
Note: Ties are broken using unrounded data. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Issues evaluating occupational projections

The Employment Projections program relies on various data sources. Changes in methodology and classifications in these programs and surveys result in challenges with evaluating occupational projections at a detailed level.

Notes

¹ Joseph Stuart, Jr., "Employment continued to expand in 2015," Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 2016, https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2016.18.

² Ryan Ansell, “Total nonfarm employment recovers in 2022, with some major industry sectors lagging behind," Monthly Labor Review,  June 2023. https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2023.12.

³ For more information on the Employment Projections (EP) program’s methodology, see “Employment Projections: Overview,” Handbook of Methods (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, last modified September 10, 2025), https://www.bls.gov/opub/hom/emp/.

Return to Projections Evaluation Homepage

Last modified date: April 10, 2026