The Estimates behind the Estimate

A think tank at Georgetown University predicts that the American job market will see multi-million job gains over the next decade, but it is far less definite about from where this bonanza will come.

The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce projects in its Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements through 2018 that the American labor market will grow by 14.4 million jobs from 2008-2018. The co-authors employ these estimates which project the creation of 3.65 million jobs over two years despite the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that seasonally adjusted non-farm payroll employment has declined by over one million jobs since February 2009.  The Center does not specify which two years.

The authors of the study, Dr. Anthony Carnevale, Dr. Nicole Smith, and Dr. Jeff Strohl, base their estimates of future job creation on similar models to those used by the architects of the $787 billion stimulus package passed by the federal government in 2009.  The authors employed these estimates even as the government’s own stimulus fund watchdogs, most notably Recovery.gov, were downplaying the initial promises.

Calling the stimulus a “catalyst that will speed the economy’s return to full employment,” the co-authors assert that 75% of the model-projected job creation in the first few years would be stimulus-based.

 

Michael Watson is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia