Bureau of Labor Statistics. (IT job, employment, average, degree)

[ComputerGuy]

Someone posted a question about a CIS degree, one of the posters provided a link on the outlook of IT jobs with a summary from the BLS. Where does the BLS get its numbers from? Every time someone wants to push a career, you hear about the projected outlook of "Insert job here" by the BLS projects increased growth.

I have only performed a quick search on the subject, but I'm very curious where these numbers come from.

[deanwichester]

Don't know about the BLS projections but the employment reports that they publish every month are just based on small surveys, not anything remotely widescale like the census figures. So the BLS employment figures are just "guesstimates"

[kodaka]

Employers report wages and a corresponding job title on their tax reports. So do workers (remember, when you sign your tax returns, you write your occupation below that).

As for projected job growth, that's conjecture based on a number of variables. The variables depend on what type of job it is. For example growth in one sector may rely mostly on global population growth. Growth in another occupation may rely more on social or political factors. Statisticians are employed to make these predictions.

But note that most of what BLS publishes are very general. "Growth in this occupation is expected to be higher than the national average" doesn't really mean much to you or me, on an individual basis.