Is spiritual diversity a neglected dimension in preparation for multicultural competency? The authors present an interdisciplinary overview of research related to multicultural training in spirituality and religion to address this issue. Findings indicate that counseling program leaders have minimal preparation in spiritual and religious diversity and interventions. In addition, spiritual and religious themes appear to be minimally included in counseling program curricula. Some evidence also indicates that religious and spiritual diversity is not considered as important in multicultural training as are other kinds of diversity. A movement to include spirituality and religious content in accreditation guidelines, however, points to a possible shift to expand preparation for religious and spiritual competency. The article concludes with implications for counselor preparation and supervision.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Federal Trade Commission. The contributions of Amy Hopson to this article were prepared in her former capacity as a researcher at Duke University. The opinions expressed in the article are the authors' own and do not reflect the views of the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the Department of Labor or the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

The main objective of the Employment Projections (EP) program is to provide estimated employment and occupational trends over a 10-year projection period. The employment projections are developed in a series of six steps that examine: the labor force, aggregate economic growth, commodity final demand, input-output, industry output and employment, and finally occupational employment and openings. Each step is based on separate procedures, models, and related assumptions. Together, the six components provide the analytical framework used to develop the detailed employment projections. The following are brief discussions of key concepts. Labor forceThe Current Population Survey (CPS) provides the historical labor force data. The labor force consists of individuals age 16 or older who are employed or unemployed. People with jobs are employed. People who are jobless are unemployed if they are available to work and have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks or are waiting to be recalled to a job from which they have been temporarily laid off. Any person who is neither employed nor unemployed is not in the labor force. The labor force participation rate is the ratio of the number in the labor force to the civilian noninstitutional population age 16 or older. Labor force participation rates may be calculated by demographic categories, including age, sex, and race. National income and product accountsNational income and product accounts (NIPAs) are provided by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) within the Department of Commerce. The NIPAs are a national accounting framework to track economic activity within the United States. The EP program uses the NIPAs in analyzing historical macroeconomic activity and to project the overall aggregate economic trend. One component of the NIPAs is the aggregate gross domestic product (GDP), also known as final demand. The NIPAs also provide more detailed information on final demand, which EP uses to estimate commodity based final demand in the context of an input-output system. Input-output dataEP uses the input-output accounting framework to model the relationship between final demand, employment, and occupational data. 1 The input-output accounting framework tracks the flow of intermediate goods and services in the production of final goods and services. The input-output data are provided by BEA and are an important component in producing the NIPAs. Through the input-output system, EP can estimate the employment level required to produce a given level of final demand. EmploymentThe U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) produces two measures of employment: (1) the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, an establishment survey that provides data on wage and salary employment and weekly hours for most nonagricultural industries and the logging industry, and (2) the Current Population Survey (CPS), a household survey that includes information regarding agricultural employment, self-employed workers and hours, and private household workers. The CES measure counts the number...