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.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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Read more »