1. Industry Projections Tips to get you started
Jodie Meyer, Research Analyst
Nebraska Department of Labor
October 2018

2. Additional Resource Guide https://support.projectionscentral.com/

3. Additional Resource Guide https://support.projectionscentral.com/

4. Additional Resource Guide https://support.projectionscentral.com/

5. Short-term Industry Projections

6. Projections are like a journey with many different paths
There are many ways to get from point A to point B
From Intro Webinar

7. Keep in mind…
The projections software is a tool that can be used in several different ways
There are many options to help accommodate for several different scenarios
No two states will likely do everything the exact same way
Learning the software is a continuous process
I learn something new every year and I have been doing projections for almost 10 years!

8. Quick Software overview
The Projections Suite Software is made up of five different applications that all work together and interrelate
Making changes to directories and areas will carry over to the other applications
Help guides are great and easy to access. Any question mark icon that you see can be clicked on to access the help guide

9. Quick Software overview
There are several settings that can be changed in the software
Basic display preferences including colors
General data preparation settings such as outlier magnitudes
The base year and projected year for all the types of projections
Model default settings
The settings can be accessed by clicking “Settings” at the top of the projections suite software

10. Software Setup Manage Rounds
Under the Short-term data section, manage rounds
Right click to add the new round

11. Software Setup Manage Areas
Under the Short-term data section, manage areas
Make sure your areas are set up and have the correct codes assigned
More details on this in the Resource Guide under the “General” section

12. Software Setup Industry Directory
If you are using any codes in your state that are not standard NAICS codes, make sure to add them into the directory
For example, Nebraska uses to represent Education employment that is a combined total of all ownerships that needed to be added to the system
To add new codes, navigate to the correct level and right click

13. Onward to Short-term Industry Projections!

14. Required Data Inputs
Employment time series for statewide and substate areas
Monthly National variables time series (online:
State and Local variables time series
More information on data inputs can be found at
Getting Data and Employment Series webinar 9/12/18
Non-Covered Employment: Improving State Projections webinar 1/10/2018

15. Import Data Import your employment and variable data
You can import data as a text file or as a spreadsheet
There are sample files on the projections support website of the different formats you can use
The help files in the projections suite also have good instructions on how to import the data

16. Assign Related Industries
Related industries are used in several of the models and need to be assigned
Default industries are determined by national experts to be “related” to specific industries. They can be used as a starting point for assigning related industries and then be adjusted, if necessary, for each area/industry combination.
Not all industries will have related ones even when using the default.
When projecting, if you get an error message of “There are no related industries for the selected industry” you will need to go into this menu and assign them to get the model to run
Example: Construction of Buildings
Specialty Trade Contractors, Wood Product Manufacturing, Primary Metal Manufacturing, Building Material and Garden Equipment Suppliers Dealers are related industries

17. Assign Related Industries
Assign Defaults to All Industries
Or use the arrows to add or remove related industries

18. Leading Index
One of the most often forgotten steps is selecting the leading index for each of your areas
The leading index is made up of your economic indicators and is used in some of the projections models
Under the Short-term projections section, select Leading Index
The help files in the projections suite provide detail on using this application and how to interpret results

19. Calculating Projections
There are two different applications you can use
Project Single Region
The preferred way
You calculate a projection for each industry and region separately
Takes more time, but gives you a better set of projections because you have more flexibility and options
Project Multiple Regions
If you are short on time, you can use this option to calculate projections for multiple sub-state areas
To use this module, the data series for Sub-state must be mutually exclusive and comprehensive.
After statewide (Aggregate Area), projections are calculated, the Sub-state Areas, plus the Balance of Area, must sum to statewide totals.
There can be no overlap on Sub-state Areas. Sub-state Areas can be any Area Types but, in each projection process, they must be mutually exclusive and, comprehensive.
More information in the projections suite help files

20. Project Single Region There are several models that can be used
See the “Resource Guide” for a list of and descriptions of the models
Tournament
This is a good place to start because it will automatically select the specification with the “Best-fit” for each type of model.

21. Project Single Region: The Three Steps
Step 1 button
Selects data from the starting quarter to 24 months back from the ending date set by the round and process projections based on those data and the models selected.
This gives an idea of how well the projections do against the actual employment for the 24- month period.

22. Project Single Region: The Three Steps
Step 2 button
Selects data from the starting quarter to 12 months back from the ending date set by the round and process projections based on those data and the models selected.
This gives an idea of how well the projections do against the actual employment for the 12 month (4 quarter) period, and process projections out 4 quarters.

23. Project Single Region: The Three Steps
Step 3 button
Selects data for the full period set by the round and projects out 2 years (8 quarters) – the full projection period.

24. Saving Your Projection

25. Manually Entering a Projected Value
Sometimes no matter how much you try to get the perfect projection in the system you just can’t get the models to cooperate or scenarios arise that the models can’t easily accommodate for
In this case you may need to manually adjust a projection

26. Manually Entering a Projected Value
Under the Short-term projections section, select View Projections
Right click on the projected value and select edit to manually change the value
This will save it and automatically change it in the system

27. Manually Entering a Projected Value
You may need to change industries or areas or change to the percent growth graph and back to the level one to see the graph change.

28. Long-term Industry Projections

29. Convert short-term time employment series to long-term
All the work that was done to get your data gathered and cleaned up for the short-term projections can be used to create your long-term employment time series
In the short-term projections module under the “Data” menu, select “Aggregate”
Under step 1 select the aggregation type to aggregate by Time
Follow the rest of the prompts to select the area and industries
Once you hit the Aggregate Data button the annual data will be saved in the system and available in the long-term module

30. Convert short-term time employment series to long-term

31. Required Data Inputs
Employment time series for statewide and substate areas
Don’t forget your totals!
National employment time series data with projected values (online:
National variables time series and projected values (online:
State and Local variables time series and projected values
Population
Personal income-Real (inflation adjusted)
Remember that if a projection is not available for an indicator you will have to come up with this on your own!
See the webinars mentioned earlier for more information

32. Note: Population and Personal Income
You need to designate the population and personal income variables for each area
Required for OLS models and the population ratio in Shift Share.
Under the Long-term data section, Variable Directory
Right click and select edit
A box will appear where you can designate Pop/PI

33. Saving your projections in the system
When you save a projection from any of the different model screens it saves it along with the rest of the projections you have saved and created.
This is not the same as saving as your final projection!

34. Saving your projections in the system
You select the desired model on the summary screen
Check the 'Select' box to designate which industry projections should go to the Industry Control Totals (ICT) file.

35. Saving your projections in the system Manual Entry
Sometimes you may need to manually adjust a projection
There are two main ways to do this:
Make the change in the Adjustments module
This is best because it:
creates a new record in the projections table
automatically selects it
gives it a model type of Adjusted
keeps the old record in the table
Hand-edit the ICT file during ICT Editing

36. Saving your projections in the system Manual Entry
In the long-term adjustments module, select “Across Industries”
Select your area and year, then on the menu to the left select the desired NAICS level to show the list
Right click on the projection you want to adjust and click “edit”

37. Saving your projections in the system Manual Entry
Now type in your desired new value and hit enter on your keyboard
This now unlocks the “Save” option, click this button and the adjusted value is saved
This will change your totals, so remember to adjust them after making a change!
More information on the adjustment module can be found in the online training videos

38. Saving your projections in the system Manual Entry
Now when you go back to the Summary screen you will see the adjusted value you typed in is selected and if you had a previous model selected it will now have a check mark in the “Adjusted” column

39. Create Employment From Projections
Some models need a projected value for statewide so you can use the model to do projections for the regions
Complete your statewide projections, then use Create Employment from Projections to save this projection as part of the employment time series
Under the Long-term output section, Create Employment from Projections

40. Batch processing v. Project multiple regions v
Batch processing v. Project multiple regions v. Running the models separately
How much time do you have?
If you have the time, it is always better to run models separately
Batch Processing processes one area at a time for multiple industries using existing models.
Project Multiple Regions processes all sub-state areas at the same time for multiple industries
But there are some tradeoffs!

41. Batch Processing
You have the option to process all of the models that are defined in the system
Statistics are generated for the models
You can see how models compare and adjust as needed
But sometimes it can be overwhelming and you miss out on the full details of the models
This is what I use in Nebraska
I use the summary screen to export the projections into Excel
Then I use conditional formatting and sorts of the results to help me narrow down models
I then examine and adjust individual models as needed

42. Batch Processing

43. Project Multiple Regions
You can have the values for those areas add up to the statewide by selecting the “forced” setting
Displays the regions side by side
Only some of the models are available: OLS Export 1, Implicit Shift Share, Employment Population Ratio Shift Share, Linear Time Series, and Logarithmic Time Series
No explanatory statistics are generated, except for growth rate
Data needed to maximize the use of the Project Multiple Region Module:
Population for each area (series and projection)
Projection for area total all industries for each area

44. Project Multiple Regions
The online training videos do an excellent job of walking you through this process

45. Suppression
Commonly asked question: “Where do I find the suppression information for industries?”
It depends on where you got your employment time series data
Most commonly states use QCEW data
Ask QCEW staff to get the suppression codes
See if you can get a copy of their WID file to get the codes
However…
due to where you are getting other parts of the data or how you combine codes, this may change how you suppress things.
For example: post office, railroads, hospitals
Changing these then can have a ripple affect on other industries
Deep Dive session on Friday

46. Nebraska Notes
This is how I do things in Nebraska-your state could be completely different
But I wanted to show you a bit of my process so you have an idea of how at least one other states tackles things

47. Nebraska Notes
I use the projections software for long-term and short term
I use a spreadsheet to record all my projections in addition to saving them in the software
I create my ICT file outside of the system and import it back in
I start with statewide, then project the regions.
But the final statewide total will be the a sum of the regions
The statewide data I project can be used in the system where needed for regional projections
It also acts as a good check of the projections
If the region totals are quite a bit different than the statewide projection it flags as something I need to review closer

48. Nebraska Notes For short-term: For long-term, I use batch processing
I use project single region for statewide and the regions
I start with the options that come up with tournament and adjust as needed
For long-term, I use batch processing
I then export the summary reports to Excel
I do a bit of combining of the different model types into one spreadsheet and use conditional formatting to highlight the best statistics
I also sort to see the model results from the lowest to highest
This helps to narrow down the models I want to look at closer in the software

49. Contact Information
Jodie Meyer Office of Labor Market Information