Employment Projections Program Data User Surveys

Thank you for helping us improve the products and publications of the Employment Projections program. These include projections of the aggregate economy, labor force, industry employment and output, and occupations. The projections data and analysis inform the discussion of occupations in the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

Even if you are not a frequent user of Employment Projections products or have not used them at all, any feedback you can provide would be appreciated.

Your participation in this survey is voluntary. We estimate that it will take approximately 10 minutes to complete.

We are collecting this information under OMB Clearance Number 1225-0059. Without this currently approved number, we could not conduct this survey. (Expiration: November 30, 2012).

Please note that this survey is being administered by SurveyMonkey.com and resides on a server outside of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) domain. The BLS cannot guarantee the protection of survey responses and advises against the inclusion of personally-identifiable information -- such as your full name, phone number, e-mail address, etc. -- unless you expressly wish to share that information with BLS.

If you have any questions about this survey, please contact User Survey.

For more information about Employment Projections, please visit: http://www.bls.gov/emp/.

Click 'Next' below to begin the survey.

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1. Which of the following categories best describes you? 

• Government

• Media

• Researcher

• Academic

• Business

• Private citizen

• Other (please specify)

2. How often do you visit this website (BLS projections website)?

• This is my first time

• On a regular basis – please explain below

• On an irregular basis – please explain below

3. What do you use the BLS projections for? (select all that apply)

• To research jobs and/or make career decisions

• As an input to independent projections or forecasts

• As information to make organizational decisions

• As input into an article/report

• As a comparison to own projections or forecasts

• As part of a research project

• None of the Above

• Other (please specify)

b. (if “As part of a research project”) Please provide a short description of the research you are conducting and how you are using projections data for the project.

3. How familiar are you with the following data products on our website?

	Not at all Familiar	A Little Familiar	Somewhat Familiar	Very Familiar
Labor Force	○	○	○	○
Industry Employment	○	○	○	○
Industry Output	○	○	○	○
Commodity Output	○	○	○	○
National Employment Matrix	○	○	○	○
Employment Requirements Matrix	○	○	○	○
Factor Analysis of Industry and Occupational Employment Changes	○	○	○	○
Input/Output Data (including Use, Make, and Final Demand Tables	○	○	○	○

3. The aggregate economic projections include hundreds of variables estimated in a system of equations describing the U.S. economy. Among the variables projected are nominal and real measures of GDP and its detailed components (i.e., consumption, investment, trade, government), nonfarm wages and salary employment, productivity, personal income measures, and many more.
   
   How familiar are you with the BLS aggregate economic projections?

• Not at all Familiar

• A Little Familiar

• Somewhat Familiar

• Very Familiar

3. (if aggregate economic projections > Not at All Familiar) What information are you interested in from the aggregate economic projections? (select all that apply)

• Gross Domestic Product (GDP)

• Employment

• Unemployment rate

• Productivity

• Other (please specify)

3. (if aggregate economic projections > Not at All Familiar) Where do you look to find information about aggregate economic data? (select all that apply)

• Monthly Labor Review article

• Tables on the website or in Excel files (contain data for 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, and annual rates of change)

• The critical variable Excel file (contains data for 2004-2010 and 2020)

• None of the above

• Other (please specify)

3. (If critical variable Excel file) Which categories of data do you reference within the critical variable file:

• Detailed GDP components

• Personal Income Data

• Federal Government Receipts and Expenditures

• State & Local Government Receipts and Expenditures

• Foreign Transactions

• Housing and Construction

• Employment, Hours, and/or the Labor Force

• Productivity, Costs, and/or Prices

• None of the Above

• Other (please specify)

3. Have you looked for economic and/or employment projections from any of the following organizations? (select all that apply)

• Blue Chip Consensus

• The Federal Reserve Board and/or the Survey of Professional Forecasters (published by the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank)

• Macroeconomic Advisers, IHS Global Insight, and/or Moody’s Analytics

• Other Government agencies such as CBO, OMB, Treasury, Social Security, EIA, and/or CEA

• Other (please specify)

10. What information are you interested in from the labor force projections portion of our website? (select all that apply)

• Labor force

• Labor force participation rates

• Median age of the labor force

• Economic dependency ratio

• Civilian noninstitutional population

• None of the above

• Other (Please specify)

10. (if any of the first five choices selected in 11) Which of the following variables do you use to look at more detailed breakdowns of the data (select all that apply):

• Age

• Gender

• Race

• Ethnicity

• None, I only view the total

13. The Employment Projections database tool allows you to enter multiple criteria such as occupation, education level, etc. to create data tables that fit your needs.
    
    Have you used this tool?

• Yes

• No (skip to 16)

• Don’t know/Not sure

13. (if yes) How useful is the multi-screen data search tool?

• Very Useful

• Somewhat Useful

• A Little Useful

• Not At All Useful

• Don’ know/No opinion

15. How could this tool be made more useful?

15. Why don’t you use this tool?

• Difficult to use or understand

• Does not include important information

• Did not know about it/Could not find

• Other - specify

17. Please indicate how useful the following Monthly Labor Review (MLR) articles are to you.

	I did not read this article	Not at all Useful	A Little Useful	Somewhat Useful	Very Useful
Overview of projections to 2020	○	○	○	○	○
The U.S. economy to 2020	○	○	○	○	○
Labor force projections to 2020	○	○	○	○	○
Industry employment and output projections to 2020	○	○	○	○	○
Occupational employment projections to 2020	○	○	○	○	○

17. Were you able to find everything you were looking for on the projections website?

• Yes

• No…please specify what you were unable to find

13. If you downloaded data, did it download in a usable format?

• Yes

• No – Please explain below

• Did not download any data

If data were not usable, please explain why:

16. How well does the documentation provided enable you to read the tables correctly?

• Very well

• Well

• Neither well nor poorly

• Poorly

• Very poorly

• Depends on the tables

b. (if ‘depends on tables’) Please give examples of some tables with poor documentation.

17. Do you have any unanswered questions about how the data were derived? 

• Yes – Please describe

• No

17. How adequate are descriptions of our methodology?

• Very adequate

• Adequate

• Neither adequate nor inadequate

• Inadequate

• Very inadequate

b. (if inadequate or very inadequate) How can the methodology descriptions be improved?

17. How easy or difficult are our methodology descriptions to understand? 

• Very easy

• Easy

• Neither easy nor difficult

• Difficult

• Very difficult

b. (if difficult or very difficult) Which parts of the methodology descriptions are most

confusing?

17. How easy or difficult is technical information to find?

• Very easy

• Easy

• Neither easy nor difficult

• Difficult

• Very difficult

17. What additional changes, if any, would you like to see made to our technical documentation?

• None

24. Do you have any further comments to share about the BLS projections program?

• Yes ….please comment below

• No

25. Surveys such as this one occasionally raise issues that we would like to immediately follow up on and clarify. If you would be willing to be contacted by BLS in a brief phone call to discuss some of your answers, please send an e-mail with your name and phone number to User Survey.