After Everything: Projections of Jobs, Education, and Training Requirements through 2031. Technical Appendix

This appendix documents the methodology used by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce to project educational demand within the US economy. The methodology produces forecasts using data from two private analytics companies. The authors use occupational forecasts provided by Lightcast that are calibrated to total employment forecasts from IHS Markit. The data is then fed into a model that was created more than a decade ago and has been repeatedly refined. In the model, the authors use gross domestic product (GDP) and employment projections from IHS Markit as feedstock for an input-output (I/O) model developed by Lightcast. The authors have a four-step approach to forecasting educational demand: (1) Forecast educational distributions within occupations; (2) Estimate long-term employment projections; (3) Estimate change in the occupational structure; and (4) Project educational demand through 2031.