You mean like the people who compiled the statistics saying the recession is over? Why? Because Wall St. is making money? Foreclosures, unemployment, the difficulty many businesses have attracting customers, none of that matters? We have a technical, small increase in GDP and thus we are clearly out of the woods? They miss the forest for the trees. I can cobble together statistical numbers, but it matters how you apply it. I know stats; I did them for years, won numerous competitive awards etc. I won't bore the crap out of you going into methodological flaws and formulaic problems. Suffice it to say most of our current statistical models suck and are woefully inadequate.
Let's look the stats you quoted and see why they are inapplicable (No no, this is a really good illustration of why people sing their words but stutter what they mean):
Look specifically at the: "Projections data from the National Employment Matrix" Table you quoted
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos303.htm#outlookThere are two glaring problems I can see right off the bat:
I.) It doesn't feature the relevant comparables:
A.) Number of current software jobs (yeah, they got this one woo hoo).
B.) Factors reducing future jobs in the area including but not limited to:
a.)The number of current software job holders who are approaching retirement age.
b.) The number of software jobs that have been outsourced in recent years.
c.) The number of "software engineer" qualified people who are seeking but not finding field relevant employment (i.e. latent competition).
d.) Technical factors streamlining coding and requiring less coders
e.) The number of relatively young (not approaching retirement age software job holders).
f.) The number of financially healthy firms employing software developers
C.) Factors increasing future jobs in the area including but not limited to:
a.) Theoretical applications for coding currently in development that would require more coding.
b.) The public's consumption of coded goods both in individual products and price of those products
c.) The relative increase or decrease in the price of coded products as a trend. Increasing price indicates growth. Reduction indicates decay.
d.) The number of current software job holders approaching retirement age.
e.) the number of financially unhealthy firms employing software developers
All of the above are statistically significant contributors to job availability but they are expensive to track so screw it. Also they make us look bad and we're the government cheerleaders so meh....
This is long enough already. The point is that their methods aren't addressing the relevant factors. That's why they keep projecting that the economy will grow so much more than it has. All the numbers add up, that's not the difficult part, its knowing what numbers to weigh how much and in comparison to what.
II.) Check in deeper:
http://www.bls.gov/emp/nioem/empioan.htmFinal Demand for their projection methodology is GDP? Wow that's really lazy. Gah, I could literally go on for another 12 pages ripping them and their numbers apart, but I'm guessing no one is reading this far. I really wish they'd let the statisticians model more accurately, but that requires more resources no one wants to spend.
Bottom line: No one has accurately modeled employment trends in this economy and I don't have the time or resources to do so currently.