How we project the labor gap.

For every occupation in every U.S. metro, LaborAtlas asks one question: will there be enough workers over the next decade? It projects supply and demand separately, then uses an equilibrium-adjusted economic model to figure out how wages and employment respond when the two do not match.

Supply is built from a demographic cohort-flow model — aging, retention, new entrants, immigration, and observed occupational switching from federal survey data. Demand comes from BLS Employment Projections and state workforce-agency forecasts, allocated to metros via a Bartik shift-share. The equilibrium step solves, for each metro, the wage path that clears supply and demand for each of 22 occupation groups.

A "gap" is the number of additional workers needed if wages are not allowed to rise more than a chosen percentage above their 2024 level. We report gaps at five wage-pressure ceilings: 2%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%. The full methodology — including validation, limitations, and the four immigration and three AI scenario definitions — is being ported from the working paper and will live on this page.