U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. Bureau of Labor StatisticsA link for contacting us is at the bottom of this page. However, before contacting us, please see if your question is covered in this list of frequently asked questions.
The fastest growing occupations
The industries with the largest employment growth
The Career Guide to Industries is produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), an agency within the United States Department of Labor. Although the Career Guide provides career information, the BLS does not provide information on specific job openings except for jobs within the BLS, primarily for economists, mathematical statisticians, and computer specialists. Information on jobs with the BLS may be found at http://www.bls.gov/bls/jobshome.htm. However, over one million active job opportunities can be searched online using America's Job Bank at http://www.ajb.dni.us. Additional career information is available at America's Career Info Net at http://www.acinet.org/acinet/.
Also, although you already may have consulted the Occupational Outlook Handbook at http://www.bls.gov/oco/, you may want to consult the Sources of Career Information section at http://www.bls.gov/oco/oco2002.htm for information on job search methods and addresses of local sources of information.
Ordering and price information for the Handbook is available at http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_order_information.htm. The Career Guide is no longer available in print.
The BLS Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) program produces employment and wage estimates for over 700 occupations. Earnings data are available for the Nation as a whole, for individual States, and for metropolitan areas.
BLS does not prepare regional, State, or local area projections. However, most States do prepare occupational employment projections, which are available at http://www.projectionscentral.com.
BLS does not develop projections of unfilled jobs. A number of articles have incorrectly reported that BLS employment and labor force projections indicate that there will be more jobs than workers to fill them. BLS does project both the number of employed persons, the number of jobs, and replacement needs. Because many people have more than one job, the number of jobs exceeds the number of employed persons even before replacement needs are considered.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) does release data related to the number of job openings in an industry. For more information on JOLTS data visit http://www.bls.gov/jlt/
The analysis underlying the BLS employment projections focuses on long-term structural change and growth and assumes a full employment economy in the target year. To the extent that recessions can cause long-term structural change, they may impact the projections. However, BLS does not project recessions.
The BLS employment projections are based on analysis of long-term structural changes to the economy, not short-term business cycle fluctuations. BLS does not attempt to project the peaks and troughs of business cycles, and our projections model assumes a full employment economy in the target year. Because the economy is expected to trend out of the recession and return to full employment over the 10-year projections period, the current projections indicate faster growth rates and more numerous openings than might have been expected in several industries had employment not fallen in 2008, as the economy recovers from the current downturn. For a more detailed discussion, see "Employment projections, 2008-2018," Kristina J. Bartsch, November 2009 Monthly Labor Review.
Last Modified Date: December 17, 2009