Method and sources

Coding tiers

How a program was matched to an occupation. Non-credit listings carry no CIP or SOC code, so each is coded in tiers, and the tier is shown on its row to let a reader see why a course counts toward an occupation. Sorted by tier, coded rows come first in either direction; Crosswalk and Not coded rows sort last.

1Credential rule

The listing names a licensure or certification term from a versioned table that maps each term to an occupation, such as CNA to Nursing Assistants (31-1131) or CDL to Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers (53-3032).

2WIOA record

The provider and title match a program on the federal training provider list, so the listing takes that program's CIP and SOC codes.

3O*NET match

The title and description are scored against O*NET occupation titles, alternate titles and task statements. Only the top match above a tested confidence floor is kept.

Each non-credit listing is classed as workforce, professional development or enrichment. Only workforce listings enter the ledger. Credit, WIOA and apprenticeship programs carry their own codes: a CIP code mapped to occupations through the NCES CIP-SOC crosswalk, or the occupation code the program reports. Coding tiers apply only to listings that carry no code. A listing below the confidence floor is not coded and does not enter the ledger.

Guards

Publishing stops for an output when any of these checks fails. The last good version stays live, and the failure is logged and reported.

Definitions

Every term marked with an (i) on this site, in alphabetical order.

10-year growth

Projected change in employment for the occupation over ten years, from MERIC 2024 to 2034 projections. Statewide rows show only whether the occupation is growing.

AI exposure

How much of an occupation's work current AI systems can affect, from two MIT-licensed datasets (GPTs are GPTs and the Anthropic Economic Index), each normalized to 0 to 1 and averaged. Reported as a share of regional training capacity, never as a verdict on one program.

Apprenticeship completers

Registered apprenticeship completers or active apprentices with sponsors in Missouri. Counted only where a public source reports them.

Available anywhere

Online certificates from national platforms that train for the occupation and can be taken from anywhere in Missouri. Listed beside the ledger and never counted as local supply.

Beyond 45 minutes

The share of a county's residents aged 18 to 64, weighted by census tract, who live more than a 45-minute drive from any site training for one of their region's 10 top-gap occupations by wages at stake.

Board results

Each local workforce board's own WIOA performance for its region, as the board reports it to the U.S. Department of Labor: participants, employment in the second and fourth quarters after exit, median earnings and credential attainment. Listed alphabetically; boards are never ranked here.

Certified foreign-worker positions

Positions the U.S. Department of Labor certified for Missouri employers under H-1B, PERM, H-2A and H-2B in the latest four quarters. H-2A (seasonal farm) and H-2B (seasonal nonfarm) are also listed on their own. Employers are counted, never named.

Channel

Where a program sits: credit (IPEDS), WIOA (the federal training provider list), non-credit (college continuing education catalogs), bootcamp, employer, or registered apprenticeship (RAPIDS).

Coding tier

How a program was matched to an occupation. Non-credit listings carry no CIP or SOC code, so each is coded in tiers, and the tier is shown on its row to let a reader see why a course counts toward an occupation. Sorted by tier, coded rows come first in either direction; Crosswalk and Not coded rows sort last.

Credit awards

Annual IPEDS awards at the matching level: certificates under two years at the postsecondary nondegree level, then associate, bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees.

Credit completers

Annual completers of for-credit awards, certificate through graduate degree, in programs the NCES crosswalk maps to the occupation. A program that maps to several occupations counts in full for each. IPEDS.

Crosswalk

Credit, WIOA and apprenticeship programs carry their own codes: a CIP code mapped to occupations through the NCES CIP-SOC crosswalk, or the occupation code the program reports. Coding tiers apply only to listings that carry no code.

Dollars per worker

Federal workforce award dollars to recipients in a region in one fiscal year, divided by the region's covered employment from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. Regions are compared in dollars per worker, never raw totals, so a large region does not look better funded only because it is large.

Double desert

The share of a county's working-age residents who live beyond the 45-minute drive and in households without a home internet subscription, so neither a nearby site nor online training is within easy reach. It is part of the beyond-45 share, never added to it.

Exposure bands

High: an averaged score of 0.5 or more. Moderate: 0.2 to under 0.5. Low: under 0.2. Capacity is credit completers, WIOA completers and non-credit sections, each channel reported on its own and combined.

Family-supporting wage

A median wage at or above the region's median wage for all occupations, from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. The shaded band marks it.

Federal workforce dollars

USAspending grant obligations to Missouri recipients under WIOA adult, dislocated worker and youth (17.258, 17.259, 17.278), H-1B skills training (17.268) and registered apprenticeship (17.285).

Gap

Openings minus credit, WIOA and apprenticeship completers. Non-credit capacity is not subtracted. A gap is published only when openings, credit and WIOA supply are known in every region; apprenticeship counts where a source reports it.

In-house share

The share of licensed training sites that train only their own workers: FMCSA providers listed as private enrollment only, DHSS nurse aide programs run by a facility rather than a school, and employer academies in the site's seed list. The rest enroll the public.

Launch

A non-credit listing that appears in a provider's public catalog for the first time, matched by provider and normalized title, never by dates. Split by whether the listing's occupation has positive projected 10-year growth in Missouri.

Local completers

Annual credit and WIOA completers in Missouri programs mapped to the occupation, counted as in the ledger. Zero only when supply is known to be zero.

Median earnings

Median annual earnings of graduates working in the United States one, five and ten years after graduation, from the Census Bureau's Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes. Cells the Census Bureau suppresses are left out, never estimated.

Median wage

Annual median wage for the occupation in the area. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.

MERIC region

One of Missouri's nine regions used by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center. Demand is projected by region, not county, so a regional measure shades every county in the region the same and keeps the county lines for reference.

MoExcels

Missouri's workforce initiative grants to public colleges and universities for high-demand programs, as listed by the Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development, by institution and fiscal year.

Non-credit capacity

Scheduled sections of workforce non-credit programs coded to the occupation, as listed in public catalogs. Capacity, never graduates, so it is shown beside the gap and never subtracted from it.

Not coded

No credential rule, WIOA record or O*NET match above the confidence floor codes the listing to an occupation, so it stays in the program list and does not enter the ledger.

Not published

The source suppressed the value or an input is unknown. The site leaves it out rather than show an estimate or a zero.

Occupation group

A major group of the Standard Occupational Classification, the first two digits of the code. Group figures sum the occupations whose wages at stake are known.

Open enrollment

A program anyone can apply to. Programs run by employer academies, and programs in the employer channel, train only the employer's own workers, so they are listed as employer-internal. Registered apprenticeships count as open because sponsors take applications from the public.

Open-enrollment registry sites

Training sites in Missouri licensing registries (truck driving, nurse aide, medication aide, EMS) that enroll the public. Sites, not graduates, so they are shown beside supply and never added to it.

Openings

Projected total annual openings for the occupation: new jobs plus workers who leave the occupation or the labor force. MERIC 2024 to 2034 projections.

Openings per completer

A region's annual openings divided by its credit, WIOA and apprenticeship completers for the same occupations. No public file publishes it by region yet, so the map leaves regions unshaded for this measure.

Positions per completer

Certified positions divided by local completers. Published only when both are known and completers are above zero.

Postings index

Indeed Hiring Lab's index of job postings on Indeed, set to 100 on February 1, 2020. It tracks the direction of hiring demand; it is not a number of jobs or postings. CC BY 4.0.

Programs per 10,000 workers

Training programs offered at sites in the county for every 10,000 people employed there, from the atlas program list and BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages county employment. A measure of how much training is within reach.

Provider types

Universities and community colleges from IPEDS, private providers from the federal training provider list, apprenticeship sponsors from RAPIDS (2022 extract), and bootcamps and employer academies from the site's seed list. Circle area is proportional to programs offered.

Purpose

Each non-credit listing is classed as workforce, professional development or enrichment. Only workforce listings enter the ledger.

Registry training sites

Sites listed in state and federal licensing registries: FMCSA entry-level driver training providers and Missouri DHSS nurse aide, medication aide, EMS and nursing home administrator training. A filled square enrolls the public; an open square trains only its own staff. Traveling programs with no fixed site are not mapped.

Retirement

A listing missing from its catalog for two runs in a row. One missed run is not a retirement. The first month of the series is the baseline, so it has no launches or retirements of its own.

Shortest local route

The fewest training hours among local programs that train for the occupation and list their hours: non-credit listings, bootcamps, employer academies, apprenticeships and WIOA programs that report hours. The hours axis is a log scale, so each gridline step multiplies the hours.

Tier 1: credential rule

The listing names a licensure or certification term from a versioned table that maps each term to an occupation, such as CNA to Nursing Assistants (31-1131) or CDL to Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers (53-3032).

Tier 2: WIOA record

The provider and title match a program on the federal training provider list, so the listing takes that program's CIP and SOC codes.

Tier 3: O*NET match

The title and description are scored against O*NET occupation titles, alternate titles and task statements. Only the top match above a tested confidence floor is kept.

Typical entry education

The education BLS Employment Projections list as typical for entering an occupation. Openings are summed over the occupations at each level.

Unscored

Capacity in occupations that neither dataset scores. Shown as its own segment so the bands are never inflated.

Wages at stake

The gap, floored at zero, times the median wage. The annual pay attached to openings that no local program trains for.

WIOA completers

Annual completers of programs on the federal training provider list that are not already counted in IPEDS. TrainingProviderResults.gov.

Working outside Missouri

The share of graduates whose employer is outside Missouri, from PSEO employment flows.

Licenses and attributions

Each source's license is read from the current data release into the license column of the source table above. These are the notices the licenses ask for.

OpenStreetMap

Drive-time measures are produced from map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License (ODbL). openstreetmap.org/copyright

Indeed Hiring Lab

The postings index is from Indeed Hiring Lab, licensed under CC BY 4.0. The site shows the Missouri, metro and national series as published. CC BY 4.0

O*NET

This site incorporates information from the O*NET Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The site uses the information to code non-credit listings to occupations; USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed or tested these uses. O*NET database license

GPTs are GPTs

Occupation exposure scores from GPTs are GPTs: used under the MIT License. The license and its copyright notice are in the dataset's repository. github.com/openai/GPTs-are-GPTs

Anthropic Economic Index

Task usage data from the Anthropic Economic Index: used under the MIT License. The license and its copyright notice are in the dataset's repository. huggingface.co/datasets/Anthropic/EconomicIndex

U.S. federal and Missouri data

Data from U.S. federal agencies (BLS, the Census Bureau, NCES IPEDS, the Department of Labor, USAspending and FMCSA) is in the public domain. MERIC, DHEWD and DHSS data is published by the State of Missouri as public data.