July 21, 2022

It may be beyond the scope of what most people needed to know when planning their career, but a new tool developed by the U.S. Department of Labor can help government agencies, educational institutions, and other organizations plan programs and policies to respond to workforce demands.

The Department of Labor has launched a new Career Trajectories and Occupational Transitions (CTOT) Dashboard. According to the announcement, career trajectories refer to workers’ economic advancement prospects in the ten years after starting a job, and occupational transitions refer to the job changes these workers make.

The Department of Labor said the CTOT dashboard is an interactive tool that allows users to view data from four nationally representative longitudinal surveys and online career profiles that capture workers’ career trajectories and transitions as they occur in the labor market. The dashboard focuses on “mid-level” occupations – those that typically require education or experience beyond a high school diploma or equivalent, but less than a four-year degree.

Together with other sources of labor market information, users can leverage the dashboard data to develop programs and policies that are responsive to workers’ real-world experience. Users can interact with the data to:

• Explore how workers in mid-level occupations move through specific jobs and occupational clusters, and how they experience wage growth over time
• Identify “launchpad” occupations associated with higher wage growth
• Look for clusters or occupational characteristics associated with wage growth, and understand where disparities exist and could be addressed

Those who are interested in using the tool can watch a recording of a recent webinar on how to use the dashboard and can learn more about the study at Career Pathways Descriptive and Analytical Project.