The Occupational Outlook Handbook can help you compare what different jobs typically pay, what education they require, how workers learn on the job and how employment is projected to change. It organizes profiles by occupational group and offers ways to select occupations by several of these measures. For a useful comparison, a reader needs to check the period covered by each profile and treat national figures as a starting point, not a prediction of what one employer will offer.
Start with work that interests you
The handbook’s home page groups occupations into fields such as health care, construction and extraction, business and finance, and computer and information technology. Starting with a group can make a broad search more manageable, but people whose interests cross fields may need to browse more than one group. Profiles describe what workers do, which can help establish whether two job titles actually involve the tasks a reader wants to compare. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Consider a hypothetical person choosing between becoming an electrician and a computer support specialist. The handbook places those occupations in different groups and gives each a profile. The reader can first compare the work described, then move to education, training, pay and projected employment. That order helps avoid treating salary as the only measure of whether a job fits.
Compare the same measures
The handbook provides selectors for median pay, entry-level education, on-the-job training and projected new jobs or growth rate. A person weighing two occupations can put those categories side by side: one job may have a different typical education path, or its profile may describe a different amount of training after hiring. The measures answer distinct questions; no single one captures the whole route into a job or its day-to-day demands. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Pay figures describe a median, not a promised starting wage. The Department of Labor explains that federal wage protections include minimum-wage and overtime rules for covered, nonexempt workers, while state minimum-wage laws may also apply. Those rules govern pay floors and overtime; they do not turn an occupational median into a particular offer. U.S. Department of Labor
Read projections as estimates
Projected job change can help readers compare the expected direction or scale of employment across occupations. It is an estimate about a broad occupation, not a guarantee that a particular person will find a vacancy in a particular place. The handbook’s selectors also distinguish projected number of new jobs from projected growth rate. One is a count; the other describes change relative to the occupation’s size. Bureau of Labor Statistics
A careful reader can use those projections to form follow-up questions: Are openings concentrated in certain industries? What local employers hire for this work? What credentials do those employers request? The handbook helps frame that research, but a national projection alone does not settle whether a specific training program or move makes sense.
Check dates before drawing conclusions
Each profile’s own reference period matters. The handbook homepage highlights 2025 median pay, while other figures, such as education requirements or projections, may describe different periods or have their own notes. A comparison should record the year and measure shown on both profiles rather than assume every statistic was gathered at the same time. Bureau of Labor Statistics
A practical comparison might list the two occupations, then note median pay and its year, typical entry education, on-the-job training, projected change and each profile’s reference period. If one measure is missing or uses a different period, that is useful context rather than a reason to fill the gap with a guess. The result is a clearer set of tradeoffs to investigate with current local job postings and training information.
Sources & further reading
- Occupational Outlook Handbook ↗Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Wages and the Fair Labor Standards Act ↗U.S. Department of Labor
