Jobs Outlook to 2024: Encouraging or Disappointing?

Part 1 of 3

Last month the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their Projections of Occupational Employment 2014– 2024. They do an excellent job presenting and explaining the information.

So you may wonder, are the projections good news or bad news for the US workforce? Lately we have seen a mix of good and bad news about the economy. The same can be said about the national occupational employment projections.

Let’s take a look at how well the job market has improved since the onset of the Great Recession.

• First the bad news: Occupational employment is approaching pre-recession levels, but in 2014 we were not yet there.
• Then the good news: 2012–2014 saw the largest two-year increase in overall employment since the year 2000.

Now we’ll have some fun at the expense of the labor economists. Ten years ago it was projected that occupational employment would grow by 13% between 2004 and 2014, a total of nearly 19 million additional jobs. How did we do?

The actual increase in employment 2004–2014 was only 3.4%, just under 5 million jobs. In fairness to the economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, they do not claim to make predictions about the future. They do as good of a job with their projections as anyone could. Nevertheless, it is interesting to compare the expectations of 10 years ago to today’s reality.

My next post will evaluate the job projections for the next 10 years.