BC Stats, with the financial assistance of the Ministry of Advanced Education, developed the Regional Employment Projection Model (REPM), designed to project industrial and occupational employment in regions of the Province of British Columbia.

The methodology used in the model has come largely from previous work on community dependencies carried out earlier by BC STATS. The fundamental premise is that the economy of a region can be represented by income flows that can be classified as "basic" (or driver) and "non-basic" (or support), depending on the source of the income.

The current version of the model is benchmarked to the 2001 Census employment by Regional District, and is projected forward up to the most up-to-date annual employment data from the Labour Force Survey. The growth rates from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) at the provincial level for the basic industries are used to project growth down to the Regional District level. The model then calculates the indirect jobs based on the Regional District specific multipliers.

The industrial employment projections from the Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS) are then used as the source data for the industrial growth, both in determining the growth rates in the direct employment, and then as a benchmark on which to reconcile the industrial employment generated by the model.

An important determining factor of growth by region is the nature of major projects coming on-stream in the outlook timeframe. Firstly, they affect construction employment, and secondly, many will affect specific industries once they move into the production phase.