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TEPS is a tool that is intended to assist in the analysis and discussion of supply
and demand issues relevant to Connecticut’s workforce, and to help the user make
informed decisions when planning education and training programs. It will help to
identify skill imbalances (that is, skill shortages or surpluses) in the labor market,
and thereby help to guide the training investments of individuals and program planners.
By helping to direct the development and expansion of structured training programs
to address skill shortages, the TEPS also serves as an economic development tool
by which workforce development organizations such as One-Stop Centers address the
critical labor needs of industries and firms. |
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TEPS is intended primarily for educational administrators and workforce planners
who are considering whether or not to develop a new program, expand or contract
an existing one, or drop an existing program entirely, but can also be used by counselors
who are working with students or clients who are trying to decide what career to
go into. It is designed to help planners and administrators identify employment
opportunities and plan educational and training programs. |
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Supply/demand analysis is helpful for employers and human resource managers as they
look at the education levels of their potential applicant pools. It can show program
planners where the need for trained workers lies. Supply/demand data are important
for career counselors and One-Stop staff, who can recommend that individuals enroll
in training programs that will result in the skills demanded by employers. Workforce
planners (e.g., workforce board staff, chambers of commerce, and governor's office
staff) can use supply/demand data to help integrate workforce development and economic
development, by identifying the types of training individuals are receiving and
by coordinating this training with current and future economic development plans.
In theory, if one counted all available jobs in a given occupation and compared
that number to all the people that had the necessary skills to do that job, one
could determine if skills shortages or surpluses exist. All that data is rarely
available, but the information in TEPS can give an estimate of which occupations
are showing shortages or surpluses. This should only be the starting point of an
in-depth discussion of the situation.
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These comments are intended to help users understand and analyze the data and their
possible limitations pertinent to each supply/demand cluster.
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The correlation between educational programs and occupations is often fuzzy: there
may be multiple educational paths leading to a single occupation, and a single program
may lead to a variety of different occupations. In addition, there are many programs,
particularly at the bachelor’s degree level, which do not map well to specific occupations.
Many of these are steppingstones to even more advanced education. These general
comments and caveats are included to make users aware of some of the things that
make supply/demand analysis such a complicated task and can pertain to many of the
clusters. Comparing the number of annual job openings with the number of program
graduates in a cluster usually does not by itself provide a sufficient assessment of occupational
shortages and surpluses. This is only one piece of the puzzle, but it can start
the process of investigating skill gaps.
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Matching the supply of Connecticut graduates with the occupational demand is a complex
process, even when an educational program seems readily identifiable with an occupational
field, such as nursing, for example. A cluster groups related occupations and programs
so that educational data can be linked with occupational data in order to do supply/demand
analysis.
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A few occupations – in most cases an “all other” occupational title – have been assigned to more than one cluster. The percent shown is the percent of the occupation’s estimated employment, projected employment and total annual openings allocated to that cluster.
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The name or title of a job that identifies a person's principal business or work
activity. Occupations are classified using the Standard Occupational Classification
(SOC) taxonomy, a standard classification system used in social and economic statistical
reporting programs, such as the Census or U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)
programs. The SOC is the basic occupational coding taxonomy used by all federal
statistical agencies, and affiliated state statistical agencies, for the purpose
of collecting, calculating, or disseminating occupational data. All workers are
classified into one of over 820 occupations according to their occupational definition. |
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The name or title of an instructional program. Programs are classified using the
Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) taxonomy, which was developed to
support the accurate tracking, assessment, and reporting of fields of study and
program completions activity. The CIP is used to classify both secondary- and postsecondary-level
programs. It was developed by the National Center for Education Statistics of the
U.S. Department of Education. The CIP taxonomy is the accepted federal government
statistical classification standard for instructional programs and is used in a
variety of education information surveys and databases. |
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Supply/demand clusters are groups of occupations and the programs that train for those occupations.
A cluster can be as simple as one occupation matched with one program, or as complex
as many occupations matched with many programs. There can also be clusters that
contain only occupations or only programs. These clusters were created specifically
for Connecticut. The grouping of occupations and their job openings and related
training programs and their graduates (completers) allows demand data to be compared
to institutional supply information from education and training programs. |
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The supply of labor is the total of all those who are working (that is, the employed
workforce), the unemployed population actively seeking work, and new entrants into
the labor market (including training program completers), plus the net occupational
and geographic transfers, and returning military veterans.
TEPS uses the number of people who have completed training preparing for the occupations
in the cluster as an estimate of supply. The supply data includes only graduates
of formal training programs from higher education institutions, private occupational
schools and technical high schools.
For the Cluster Report, the supply data is divided into five levels:
Sec – Secondary-level
programs at technical high schools
Post/Cert – Adult-level programs at technical high schools, programs at
private occupational schools and hospital schools, certificate-level programs at
colleges and universities
Assoc – Associate degrees
Bach – Bachelor’s degrees
Grad – Postgraduate certificates, master’s degrees, doctoral degrees, first
professional degrees
There are other sources of training for many occupations, such as apprenticeships
and on-the-job training, for which we do not have good estimates of training completers. |
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The state of the economy in which all eligible people who want to work can find
employment at prevailing wage rates. However, it does not imply 100 percent employment
because allowances must be made for frictional unemployment and seasonal factors.
It is a rate of employment defined by government economists to take into account
the percentage of unemployed who would not be employed regardless of the nation's
economy. The nation's rate of full employment is currently defined as 4%. |
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| Surplus of individuals available to work. An oversupply of qualified workers
means there are more qualified workers than there are jobs. |
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| Shortage of individuals available to work. The demand for these occupations outstrips the supply. |
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The demand for workers in the economy stems from employers' need for labor to produce
goods and services. As this need fluctuates, so does the amount of labor demanded.
Demand is estimated through occupational estimates of current employment and projections
for future job openings due to growth and replacement needs. TEPS uses the number
of annual job openings for each of the occupations assigned to the cluster as an
estimate of demand. |
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The supply/demand cluster report presents both supply and demand data in one report
for each cluster. It Includes associated
data for all occupations and programs assigned to that cluster. Occupations with
employment of less than 30 are included in the totals but not displayed in the
report. Programs may be assigned
to the cluster but do not displayed data because
either the program is not offered in Connecticut or there were no completers for
the program that year. |
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The minimum general education or training required for an individual to be employed in an occupation.
The code presented on each cluster report is as follows:
01 - First Professional Degree
02 - Doctoral Degree
03 - Master’s Degree
04 - Work Experience Plus Bachelor’s or Higher Degree
05 - Bachelor’s Degree
06 - Associate Degree
07 - Postsecondary Vocational Training
08 - Work Experience In a Related Occupation
09 - Long-Term On-the-Job Training
10 - Moderate-Term On-the-Job Training
11 - Short-Term On-the-Job Training |