How the Department of Labor creates these projections

Step 1: Project industry employment

Data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages are used to determine the number of jobs for each industry during the first year, or “base year” of the projection period. 1 Certain types of public-sector employment – such as education, hospitals, rail transportation, and U.S. Postal Service – are combined with employment in private-sector industries.

Race Definitions

Following are a sampling of characteristics of race definitions. These definitions are from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The concept of race as used by the Census Bureau reflects self-identification; it does not denote any clear-cut scientific definition of biological stock. The data for race represent self-classification by people according to the race with which they most closely identify. It is recognized that the categories of the race item, include both racial and national origin or socio-cultural groups.

Seasonal adjustment and how it works

An economist is waiting at a bus stop and notices a dejected young man sitting on a bench. She asks him what’s wrong, and he replies that summer is over, the place where he worked has closed for the winter, and he’s depressed to be out of work. The economist replies, “Don’t worry, then. Seasonally adjusted, you still have a job!”

It’s an old joke, but useful for pointing out that seasonally adjusted job numbers and unemployment rates are a little more complicated than data that haven’t been adjusted.

What is an Incidence Rate?

Incidence rates represent the number of injuries and illnesses for a given number of full-time workers, and are calculated as:

(N / EH) x 200,0001

Where:

N = number of injuries and illnesses
EH = total hours worked by all employees during the calendar year

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