June 16, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Assessing projections of management jobs

The accuracy of BLS employment projections of executives and managers has fluctuated over the years. For some periods, the projections were quite close and in others, they were off by a fairly wide margin.

[Chart data—TXT]

The projections of executive and managerial employment growth were generally accurate in three of the five periods shown in the chart: 1960-70, 1960-75, and 1980-90. The 1960-75 employment projection was almost equal to actual growth. In all three of these cases, actual employment growth was beneath projected growth.

The actual growth rate of employment of executives and managers was far above the projected rate in 1968-80 and 1984-95. The biggest discrepancy was in the 1968-80 period, in which actual employment growth (43 percent) was almost twice as high as projected growth (22 percent). While not as large, the difference between projected and actual growth was also broad in 1984-95, at 13 percentage points.

Data on projections are produced by the BLS Employment Projections program. Find more information on the accuracy of employment projections in "The quality of BLS projections: a historical account," Monthly Labor Review, May 1999.