The Indicator from Planet Money · Monday, September 7, 2026
Economist Maxime Massinkoff analyzed the historical accuracy of the BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook projections from the 1940s to the 1980s. His research, initially motivated by AI developments and job security concerns, found a strong correlation between projected and actual job growth, though he notes that predicting entirely new trends like AI is challenging.
“With all the developments in AI, I got really curious about will this job still be around? And how good would advice be based on these kinds of job forecasts?”
“These predictions are really strongly correlated with the employment trajectories. If you choose, uh, a job that the outlook was really optimistic about, there would be much higher growth in that occupation in the next 10 or 20 years.”
“These things at least historically have just unfolded slowly.”