Allied Health Services Avoiding Crises (1989) / Chapter Skim
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E. Projections of Demand and Supply in Occupations
E. Projections of Demand and Supply in Occupations
Pages 303-318
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From page 303... ...
Workers investing time and money in education, employers concerned about the availability of skilled workers, and a public interested in stability of wages and prices and in getting services when they need them all have an interest in our ability to anticipate changes in employment at least a few years in the future. Projections may be made for a variety of purposes, among which are the following: · evaluating the adequacy of training or education programs in light of the potential need for workers; .
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From page 304... ...
BLS launched its occupational outlook research program in 1940 in response to the concern of guidance professionals that young people have adequate information with which to choose among careers. The same motivation lies behind the efforts of state governments to provide local projections of employment growth by occupation.
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From page 305... ...
A second method that has been used to project demand and supply is to extrapolate past employment trends in the occupation. This method is based on the assumption that, whatever factors have operated in the past will continue to operate.
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From page 306... ...
This method attempts to take into account some of the strategic factors affecting employment. This is not an easy task, however; demand in an occupation may be affected by technological changes; market changes; the way consumers spend their money and the amount of income they have to spend; government expenditures on education, health, highways, and military material; and the capital expenditures of industry.
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From page 307... ...
The use of research results in schools and in vocational guidance undoubtedly influences the perceptions of students about employment opportunities and the occupational choices they make. The basic approach followed by BLS is to estimate the employment in each occupation that will be generated by economic demand.
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From page 308... ...
Yet some of the changing factors move relatively slowly: there are lags between scientific discoveries and the commercial exploitation of new technology, between the initiation of a new style and its widespread adoption, between the first Japanese automobile sold in the United States and iapan's subsequent market success. These lags mean that useful projections can be produced, provided certain conditions are met: (1)
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From page 309... ...
Projections for health services considered such developments as cost containment policies, the shift of many surgical procedures to physicians' offices and outpatient facilities, the growth of new group practices and nursing and personal care facilities, and the aging of the population. The bureau's extensive research program on productivity and technological development yields insights about the growth of overall productivity and of productivity in each industry, and the technological developments that affect the numbers and kinds of occupations that are employed.
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From page 310... ...
. Brief articles on each of about 200 occupations involving relatively long periods of training are published in the Occupational Outlook Handbook; profiles of the basic numbers- employment, projected employment growth, unemployment rates, replacement rates, and number of people completing training in a recent year for about the same number of occupations are published in a series of bulletins called Occupational Projections and Training Data, of which the most recent (BLS Bulletin 2206)
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From page 311... ...
Evaluation of BLS Projections and Methods Any evaluation of BLS's projection methods should begin with a look at the scorecard that is, at how accurate the projections have been. The bureau has published a number of evaluations of the accuracy of its projections, comparing them to actual employment in each industry and occupation when the target year's statistics become available.
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From page 312... ...
Taking all of the projections together, how close did they come to the actual employment changes that occurred? Going back to the class intervals shown in Table E-1, we might say that if the predicted change was in the TABLE E-1 Growth Rates in Employment in Occupations with Increases and Decreases in Emolovment.
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From page 313... ...
It is a reasonable hypothesis that the economic, technological, social, and institutional factors that are peculiar to the health industry and its occupations may make the general projection method used by BLS inappropriate for use in these fields. The evaluation studies we have cited do not include many of the allied health professions, largely because they included only occupations for which the statistics were comparable over the 10- or 15-year spans between the original projections and the target years.
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From page 314... ...
Indeed, changing relative prices throughout the system could change the projected economic relationship—for example, in tracing the demand for raw materials generated by the production of finished goods. However, the adjustments made at various steps in the projection process to introduce technological change and changes in markets and foreign trade have the effect of inserting price and market changes into the system.
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From page 315... ...
The occupational estimates of this survey are based on a smaller sample than those in the population census and thus have larger sampling errors and somewhat less occupational detail; however, they are available annually.) To improve the accuracy of occupational composition data, BLS initiated an Occupational Employment Statistics (OES)
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From page 316... ...
When the acting commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics first testified before Congress on the request for funds to conduct occupational outlook research, he stated that the research would consider the occupational composition of the most technologically advanced plants in each
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From page 317... ...
Not only are the occupational statistics better but the collection of reports from individual plants offers a potential that has never before been available except from a few industry wage surveys: The chance to analyze why the occupational composition differs among plants in the same industry and how it is affected by the size of the plant and by new technology- analyses that may lead to better projections of occupational employment. Staffing of the Projections Research The number of BLS occupational outlook research staff has been reduced over the past few years as a result of budget cuts, and the burden on individual staff members has therefore increased.
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From page 318... ...
1984. New occupational separation data improve estimates of job replacement needs.
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