Abstract #301554

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JSM 2002 Abstract #301554
Activity Number: 312
Type: Contributed
Date/Time: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
Sponsor: Section on Government Statistics*
Abstract - #301554
Title: Evaluating the BLS Labor Force Projections to 2000
Author(s): Howard Fullerton*+
Affiliation(s): U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Address: , Washington, District of Columbia, 20212-0001,
Keywords: Error ; Population ; MAPE
Abstract:

Beginning from 1986 and continuing through 1996, BLS prepared five labor force projections for 2000. The overall errors were greatest for the 1986 and 1990 projections (1.5 percent low or high); except for these two projections, the errors were less than one percent. For those users for whom the error in the annual growth rate is most important, the error in the annual growth rate from 1988 was 0.02 percent. For four other projections, the error in the annual growth rate was either -0.1 or 0.1 percentage points. This article examines the difference between the projections and the labor force estimates from the Current Population Survey using 1990 census weights.

Labor force projection errors are a combination of population and labor force participation rate projection errors. Unlike the labor force projection, all the population projections were low. Four of the five projections had aggregate labor force participation higher than the actual. The aggregate labor force rate has yet to reach 68 percent, though three of the projections anticipated that this would happen by 2000.

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Revised March 2002