What the Occupational Outlook Handbook is

Each occupation page on this site ends with a link to the matching entry in the Occupational Outlook Handbook. The handbook is a different publication from the wage survey, with different aims, and the two are easy to confuse.

What it is

The Occupational Outlook Handbook is a BLS publication, in print since 1949 and now online, that describes several hundred occupations for people choosing or changing careers. Each profile has the same sections: what workers do, the work environment, how to become one (education, training, licenses), pay, job outlook, state and area data, similar occupations, and contacts for more information. It is written in plain language and is in the public domain, apart from photographs, which BLS licenses from commercial sources.

Where its numbers come from

The pay section of a profile quotes the median annual wage from OEWS, the same source as this site, for the most recent May. The job outlook section quotes the projected percent change in employment over the next ten years and the number of annual openings, both from the BLS Employment Projections program, which publishes a new ten-year projection each year. The handbook is updated with each projections release, so its wage figure is one release behind the newest OEWS for part of the year.

Because the handbook quotes a single median, it inherits every limitation of that figure. The percentile distribution behind it is what this site exists to show.

Profiles and SOC codes

Handbook profiles do not correspond one-to-one with SOC codes. Many cover one detailed occupation; others group several, so that “physicians and surgeons” is one profile covering a dozen SOC codes with very different wages, and “postsecondary teachers” covers over thirty. A few SOC occupations have no profile at all. BLS publishes a crosswalk between the two, and this site uses it to decide which profile an occupation page links to; where several occupations share a profile, they all link to the same one. The grouping is described in how BLS defines occupations.

What this site takes from it

Only the link. The family rule is that occupation descriptions on this site are written in the site’s own words from at least two cited sources and reviewed, and that no prose is copied from another publication even where copying would be lawful. The handbook’s text could be reproduced, but a page that repeats it adds nothing to the web, and the handbook already exists. So the page here carries the data the handbook summarizes in one line, and the handbook carries the duties, training and outlook the page does not.

What the handbook does well

It answers questions wage data cannot. How a person enters the occupation, which licenses are required in most states, what the work is like day to day, and whether BLS expects the field to grow or shrink are all there, with sources. Its “similar occupations” lists are a good way to find the right SOC code for a job whose title is unfamiliar; see finding your SOC code.

What it does not do

It does not show a wage distribution, a state-by-state table, or anything about a specific employer. Its outlook is a projection, with the uncertainty that implies, and BLS revises each projection annually. Its pay figure is national; a reader in a particular state will find the state’s own median on the pages here.

Read the two together. The handbook explains what the job is; the tables here show what it pays, in full, where you are.