Vermont Long Term Occupational Projections
2022 - 2032
Methodology & Technical Notes
Long Term Occupational Projections use the 2022-2032 Long Term Industry Projections and Vermont May 2022 Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) data to project employment levels for over 500 occupations in Vermont in 2032. The process takes into account expected rates of change in relative demand for occupations over time within each industry as well as rates at which workers leave an occupation. The results provide a general guide for the direction and relative strength of occupational demand but are not intended to indicate absolute levels of employment in an occupation.
Long term projections are designed to assist the educational community, workforce development specialists, and individuals planning for the future. They can be used to identify occupations that will show stability, growth, and good incomes over the long run. The methods used to produce long term projections ignore the peaks and valleys of business cycles and focus on the fundamental elements that affect the demand for a particular occupation. The base year is 2022, when the economy was still recovering from the economic effects of the pandemic. That means that some of the reported growth has, in fact, already occurred.
The Projections methodology was updated in 2018 to more accurately capture the way workers change jobs over the course of their careers. Workers once entered the labor force at a young age, working until retirement in the same occupation. New, younger workers would replace them once they retired. Workers today are more likely to  work in a number of occupations during their lifetimes. The current methodology accounts for this workforce trend, capturing reasons workers leave an occupation other than retirement, such as changing careers, being promoted into management, or completing a retraining program.
Occupations included in projections are necessarily only jobs that already exist in sufficient numbers to be coded and counted. In other words, jobs that do not yet exist or are just emerging cannot be projected. It is partly through collecting new job titles and duties from employers for the data used in projections that new occupations are identified for inclusion. Any past projections become outdated when actual employment catches up with them or new projections are released, and are no longer an accurate representation of the workforce.