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9
Conclusions and Recommendations
The charge to the Committee on Occupational Classification and Analysis
is to review the need for continuing the occupational analysis program of the
U.S. Employment Service and its principal product, the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles. The committee was asked to consider in executing this
charge both the requirements of Employment Service operations and those of
other users, public and private, for the kind of information provided. The
preceding chapters have presented the evidence on which we base our
conclusions and recommendations.
CONCLUSIONS
In terms of the charge, our conclusions are the following:
1. There is a strong and continuing need both within and outside the U.S.
Employment Service for the kind of information provided by the Dictionary
of Occupational Titles and certain other products based on it.
2. Substantial improvements in the procedures and products of the
occupational analysis program are required in order to meet the national
need for occupational information.
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Conclusion 1, the continuing need for a document that provides
occupational information, takes into account three functions of the DOT: as a
dictionary, as a classification system, and as a source of material on
occupational characteristics.
DICTIONARY
The DOT is first and foremost a dictionary, which defines more than 12,000
occupations through descriptions of their work content and cross-references an
additional 16,000 occupational titles to these 12,000 defined occupations. As
such it provides a common understanding as to what is meant when a particular
occupational title is used; it is by far the most comprehensive source of
occupational definitions available in the United States.
This aspect of the DOT is of very great importance to a wide variety of
users, as chapter 4 details. We believe that there would be almost unanimous
agreement that such a document, providing a standardized terminology and
standardized definitions of that terminology, is essential. Is it, however,
specifically essential to the Employment Service's goals—its placement and
counseling operation?
We believe that it is. Some proponents of the matching of jobs and
applicants by computer have suggested that keywording obviates the necessity
for defined titles, since descriptions of a particular job and of a particular
worker's attributes can be entered directly into the computer matching system
without the intervening mechanism of a title. Such a conclusion seems to us
unrealistic because it fails to recognize the role that the occupational title plays
in everyday language and in the labor market. The occupational title is
shorthand (or, perhaps better, “short talk”). An employer placing a job order for
a Computer Programmer does not expect to describe what a programmer does
but only the particular requirements, within the general category of
programmer, for a particular job. An applicant with experience as a Lumber
Scaler is certainly better served if the placement interviewer knows or can find
in the dictionary what a lumber scaler does, because local terminology may
vary and because the interviewer may then be able to suggest other occupations
that make use of similar skills.
For this reason, then, a document that defines terms is essential to the
Employment Service's operation; some mechanism for constantly revising such
a document must be maintained as new terminology comes into use and new
activities arise.
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CLASSIFICATION
The basic purpose of the classification structure of the DOT is to organize
occupational titles and definitions in an order that facilitates the matching of job
applicants and jobs, by grouping together jobs and occupations that are
relatively interchangeable in terms of the requirements they make of a worker.
In the terminology of the occupational analysis program an individual worker
holds a position; the set of positions in which workers perform essentially the
same activities within a particular establishment is called a job; and the set of
jobs in which similar activities are performed across a number of establishments
is called an occupation. Jobs are known by many names, and hence a procedure
is needed to group together similar jobs with different titles. The 12,099
occupations defined in the fourth edition DOT constitute a classification of a
much larger number of jobs— those held by some 100 million workers in the
American labor force.
If all job applicants knew exactly what jobs they were qualified and willing
to perform, the classification structure of the DOT could be restricted to grouping
job titles into occupational categories. However, many workers are in fact able
to do different kinds of work. To optimize their employment opportunities, a
classification structure is needed that links together all the occupations in which
a worker with particular skills and qualifications might reasonably be
employed. To serve as an effective job placement tool then, the DOT must be
organized in such a way. In addition, the DOT classification should also be
compatible with other widely used classifications to facilitate the reporting and
comparison of occupational statistics.
OCCUPATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Closely related to the classification system are the attributes of occupations
and of workers that the Employment Service calls worker functions and worker
traits. These attributes provide information on such items as training time,
working conditions, physical effort, etc. As chapters 3 and 4 detail, this
information is used for many purposes, including vocational guidance, job
placement, rehabilitation counseling, and the determination of program
eligibility for training funds. Moreover, it is clear that the worker functions and
worker traits would be even more widely used if these data were more readily
available and if additional characteristics were measured.
In sum, the DOT serves as the major source of occupational data currently
available and would be sorely missed if it were discontinued. The need for the
kind of information that is contained in the DOT is confirmed
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by the extent of its distribution. Over its 13-year life (1965–1977), 148,145
copies of the third edition DOT were sold by the U.S. Government Printing
Office, and in the first 21 months of availability (through September 1979),
115,115 copies of the fourth edition DOT have been sold.
Evidence for conclusion 2—that substantial improvements are needed in
the occupational analysis program—is found throughout the report: chapter 4
identifies the kind of occupational information that is needed but not currently
available; chapter 5 identifies various organizational difficulties in the program;
chapters 6 and 7 evaluate the procedures used to collect the occupational
information contained in the DOT as well as its quality; and chapter 8 assesses
the classification structure of the DOT from the standpoint of its usefulness in
matching workers and jobs. The material presented in these chapters leads the
committee to conclude that data collection procedures are deficient in important
respects, particularly in the way in which occupations are selected for
observation and analysis and in the way in which worker trait and worker
function ratings are measured. Furthermore, the current classification structure
of the DOT does not appear to be optimal for the purpose of matching jobs and
workers, nor does the proposed keyword system appear to be an adequate
substitute.
Our conclusions that there is a strong need both to continue and to improve
the DOT lead us to 3 general recommendations intended to strengthen the
occupational analysis program and to 19 specific recommendations intended to
improve the quality of the DOT and, more generally, to facilitate the
development of occupational information of high quality.
GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The occupational analysis program should concentrate its efforts on the
fundamental activity of job analysis and on research and development
strategies—for improving procedures, monitoring changes in job content,
and identifying new occupations—that are associated with the production
and continuous updating of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The
program should discontinue the publication of career guides.
In the judgment of the committee, too much of the energy and resources of
occupational analysis staff, both in the national office and the field centers, has
been diverted from the central mission of the occupational analysis program:
the production of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (see chapter 5). Primary
attention should be devoted to research designed to improve the quality of
occupational data, the management and execution
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of the very complex data collection effort, and the preparation of supplements
to and new editions of the DOT. Other appropriate tasks— insofar as they do not
distract from the main task—include the preparation of special reports for other
agencies based on DOT data and training and technical assistance on the use of
the DOT.
The production of career guides and brochures should not be continued as
a function of the occupational analysis program. Such activities should be the
responsibility of other agencies currently engaged in this type of information
dissemination. At the national level the products of the occupational outlook
program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics are widely used; at the state and local
level the recently organized career information services program, with its links
to vocational education and other relevant state systems, provides information
to state residents on employment opportunities available in their own localities.
Both organizations are dependent on data gathered by the occupational analysis
program, and strong communication channels among these agencies are
essential. The division of labor between data gatherers and those charged with
disseminating information to the public is a rational one, however, which will
lead to better use of the quite different specialized skills called for in each of
these responsibilities.
Similarly, the Job Search Branch of the Division of Occupational Analysis
should be relocated. The Job Search Branch is an effective unit, but it relies on
information furnished by local Employment Service offices and has no
particular connection to the major activities of the occupational analysis
program. Moreover, its presence in the Division of Occupational Analysis may
distract resources from the occupational analysis activities that should be the
primary concern of the division.
2. A permanent, professional research unit of high quality should be
established to conduct technical studies designed to improve the quality of
the Dictionary of Occupational Titles as well as basic research designed to
improve understanding of the organization of work in the United States.
A number of the recommendations below relate to research needed in
specific areas in order to strengthen the occupational analysis program. In our
judgment, however, the gravest difficulty lies not in specific areas but in the
general lack of a research orientation. The early editions of the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles were at the forefront of the occupational analysis of their
time. For later editions this is no longer true: the program has been allowed to
stagnate. It will not become a vital force again unless the importance of quality
research, well integrated into the academic
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disciplines providing the basic foundations for occupational analysis, is
recognized.1
While the committee is not prepared to make detailed recommendations
regarding the location of a research unit2 or the exact size of its staff, we have
firm opinions regarding the considerations that should be kept in mind in
developing such a unit. First, we envision a unit with a relatively large, high-
level staff, of the order of 10 Ph.D.-level scientists (sociologists, economists,
psychologists, and statisticians), perhaps an equal number of B.A.- or M.A.-
level research assistants, and a sufficient number of support staff. We thus
envision a research unit that is larger than the current Occupational Analysis
Branch in the national office of the Division of Occupational Analysis. We
recognize that this is a period of budgetary restraint, but we would be derelict in
our responsibiity if we did not express our strong conviction regarding what is
needed for a viable federal occupational analysis program simply because of
current (and perhaps short-run) budgetary limitations.
3. An outside advisory committee to the occupational analysis program
should be established. Its members should be appointed by the Assistant
Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training.
This outside advisory committee should include representatives of
employers and of unions familiar with the problems of occupational
classification and placement, persons from relevant academic disciplines, and
members of the public. It should meet periodically, perhaps twice a year, to
receive and review reports on the work of the occupational analysis program
and to make recommendations on future activities.3
Four considerations underlie this recommendation:
1A good example of a successful research capability within an operating agency is to
be found in the Bureau of the Census. High-quality technical studies are produced by the
Census Bureau on a continuing basis; staff regard themselves as professional social
scientists and statisticians, have close ties with their academic disciplines, regularly
attend professional meetings, and are frequently drawn from or move to academic
positions.
2The committee spent some time discussing alternative organizational arrangements,
ranging from the establishment of a new unit within the Division of Occupational
Analysis to the creation of an entirely independent occupational research institute within
the federal government but outside the Department of Labor. In the end, however, we
decided that we did not have the necessary organizational knowledge to advise on the
optimal mechanism for creating an occupational research capability, although we are
firm in our judgment as to its necessity.
3Again, the Census Bureau provides a good example. The Advisory Committee on
Population Statistics, which meets twice a year, plays an active role in recommending
and reviewing procedures. Its members are drawn from representatives from the
Population Association of America and other interested groups.
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We believe that the periodic reporting to an informed outside advisory
committee would have a salutary effect on the planning and organizational
efficiency of the national office of the Division of Occupational Analysis or any
successor unit.
Such an advisory committee would help to prevent the research that is
essential to the program from becoming swamped by the exigencies of
operational considerations in an agency (the U.S. Employment Service) whose
primary focus is operational. It is our impression that the needs of the
occupational analysis program for adequate staff, in particular in the national
office, have not received sufficient attention in the past. An outside advisory
committee would strengthen the position of the program by providing it with a
constituency.
In our view, the occupational analysis program has not been successful in
communicating its goals or its problems to those groups standing to benefit
most from its activities. A public advisory committee would provide some
liaison to these groups and help to enlist their cooperation. Finally, all
organizations, inside or outside the government, tend inevitably to develop
procedures that acquire a sacrosanct status unless they are moderated by outside
influences. An outside advisory group could raise questions that force the staff
to consider the usefulness of established procedures.
SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS
The remainder of this chapter presents a set of recommendations
suggesting ways to improve the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and, more
generally, to facilitate the development of high-quality occupational
information. Recommendations 4–8 concern data collection procedures;
recommendations 9 and 10 concern the worker function and worker trait scales;
recommendations 11–13 concern the classification structure of the DOT and the
keyword system; recommendations 14 and 15 propose needed areas of research;
and recommendations 16–22 deal with various organizational and
administrative issues.
DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES
4. On-site observation of job performance by trained occupational analysts,
including interviews with workers and supervisors, should continue as a
major mode of data collection; experimentation with other data collection
procedures, however, should also be undertaken.
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In the judgment of the committee a major strength of the DOT is that the
descriptions it contains are based on the analysis of specific jobs rather than on
abstract descriptions of occupational categories. We encourage the continuation
of this mode of data collection.
A number of considerations have led us to this recommendation. Chief
among them is the need for standardization—in the identification of significant
tasks, the use of terminology, and the writing of descriptions. Standardization of
procedures requires the services of analysts trained to observe in a larger
context than an individual firm. As an increasing proportion of jobs are found in
the service sector, where variations in activities are less constrained by the
requirements of the machinery and equipment that dominate the production
sector, the need for standardization will probably become even greater.
We find additional support for our position in the requests of private firms
and governmental units (cited in chapter 5) for assistance from field centers and
national office analysts in developing classification systems for their employees.
It may in some cases be possible, however, to collect equally useful data
via a written instrument—a questionnaire, checklist, or task inventory.
Attention should be devoted to developing a repertoire of data collection
techniques by exploring the conditions under which each is most effective and
using the optimal technique for each situation.
5. Staffing schedules for establishments in which job analyses are performed
should continue to be collected and should be used for research purposes.
The recently discontinued tabulation by sex of the number of workers in
each occupation should be reinstated.
Staffing schedules, which outline the distribution of jobs within
establishments, are currently used only to identify activities unique to an
industry or establishment. In our judgment, however, they have value for at
least three other purposes that would substantially improve the occupational
analysis program. First, staffing schedules could be used as a check on the
representativeness of establishments selected for job analysis by comparing
staffing schedule data with the occupational structure of industries revealed
through other sources (for example, the decennial census and the occupational
employment survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics). Second, they provide a
tool that if properly used could alert occupational analysts to significant
changes in occupational structure that may indicate concomitant changes in
work content. Third, staffing schedule data are a potentially rich source of
information on the differences in occupational opportunities for men and
women. Recently, however (in November
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1978), the occupational distribution of workers on the staffing schedule ceased
to be tabulated separately by sex. In our judgment this change is unfortunate,
since it destroys the usefulness of staffing schedule data for an extremely
important research purpose. We urge that separate tabulations by sex be
reinstated.
6. The selection of establishments and work activities for which job analyses
are performed should be made according to a general sampling plan
designed for the particular requirements of occupational analysis.
The committee recognizes that the variation in the number of job analyses
per defined occupation documented in chapter 7 is not prima facie evidence of
maldistribution of effort. Some occupations are clearly homogeneous in work
content regardless of their geographical or industrial setting, whereas the
homogeneity or heterogeneity of other occupations can be determined only by
comparative job analyses.
We can find no evidence, however, of the use of systematic procedures in
the selection of sites, in the selection of jobs to be analyzed, or even in the
designation of industries to be included. The task of the national office is to
assign industries to field centers according to geographic concentration or, for
those industries that are widely dispersed, to obtain geographic representation.
The task of the field center, once an industry has been assigned, is to select
establishments that represent different size units (in terms of aggregate
employment levels) and/or known technological variations. As chapter 7 shows,
both goals are very generally stated, and no clear procedures are established for
attaining them.
An example of this lack of clarity in the procedures followed is the
assignment of industries to field centers by the national office. Industry
assignments vary widely in scope: an assignment may be as wide as “retail
trade,” a category covering establishments engaged in diverse activities, or as
narrow as “button,” covering establishments engaged in “manufacturing
buttons, parts of buttons, button blanks, etc.” Neither the basis for the national
office's decision to make an assignment broad or narrow nor the procedure by
which a field center decides among the possibilities in an industry of broad
scope is clear.
The procedures involved in the selection of jobs for analysis are also
unclear. The identification of the types of organizations that have unique types
of jobs should be an important goal, but current practice appears to be founded
on the premise that an establishment's product is a major distinguishing
characteristic of its jobs, a premise that reflects the long-standing emphasis of
the DOT on manufacturing jobs and their close association with specialized
equipment. One consequence of this emphasis
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is that jobs outside the production sector are generally assumed to require fewer
job analyses than those concerned with fabrication. Job analysis is therefore
often not undertaken throughout an establishment but is confined to those jobs
assumed to be unique to it. Although this limitation is not unreasonable, it may
result in the self-perpetuation of an assumption that is no longer accurate. The
fine line between unnecessary duplication of job analyses and unsupported
assumptions of homogeneity is not easy to draw, but the resolution of this
problem must receive attention as the economy shifts increasingly from
production to service activities.
In our judgment the set of procedures involved in the selection of jobs for
analysis should be thoroughly overhauled so that data can be collected that are
truly representative of work content. The Employment Service should seek
technical assistance in designing procedures that are both consistent with its
needs and statistically sound. (This is a logical function for an occupational
research unit, perhaps with the participation of outside consultants.)
7. Procedures should be designed to monitor changes in the job content of the
economy. Both new occupations and changes in existing occupations
should be identified.
As we have noted in chapters 6 and 7, the fourth edition DOT appears to
provide better coverage of occupations in traditional sectors of the labor market
than in rapidly expanding sectors. We suspect that this is due to the way jobs
are selected for analysis. To correct this tendency, we believe that procedures
should be developed to monitor explicitly changes in job content in the economy.
We consider first the problem of identifying new occupations. There are
several ways this might be done. A range of sources could be continuously or
periodically monitored to identify occupational titles not already included in the
DOT. Potential sources include the occupational employment surveys of the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, job orders received by local Employment Service
offices (indeed, such job orders are already a major source in the form of
occupational code requests), classified ads in major newspapers, and the
Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted monthly for the Bureau of Labor
Statistics by the Bureau of the Census. Because of its rich potential we urge
exploration of ways to use the CPS to monitor the emergence of new
occupations. It should be noted that three past CPS samples have been assigned
DOT codes by occupational analysts at the field centers (those from April 1967,
April 1971, and March 1978—the last still in preparation). Preliminary
experimentation could be undertaken using these surveys.
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Second is the problem of how to identify changes in the content of existing
occupations. This is more difficult, since there is no good way to know in
advance of analysis whether the content of an occupation has substantially
changed. It may be possible, however, to develop an information network using
industrial, trade, and professional associations, labor unions, etc. to keep abreast
of rapidly changing occupations. Moreover, it is likely that in those sectors of
the occupational structure in which many new occupational titles are emerging
there is also rapid change in the content of existing occupations. The national
office should develop a monitoring system for identifying sectors of the
occupational structure in which there is rapid change, in order to target the
occupations in such sectors for intensive analysis.
8. The Dictionary of Occupational Titles should be expanded to include
definitions of all occupations in the economy, whether or not they are
serviced by the Employment Service.
As chapter 4 documents, the
is widely used outside the Employment Service because it is the most
comprehensive source of occupational information available anywhere. As such
it should attempt to be complete in its coverage of the occupations practiced in
the United States today. The fact is, however, that it is very uneven, covering
some occupations in great detail and others not at all.
Several sources can be used to identify occupations not currently included
in the DOT: the Current Population Survey described above, the Census Bureau's
Alphabetical Index of Occupations and Industries, classifications of military
occupational specialties, the federal government's occupational coding schemes,
and various specialized occupational glossaries. These lists should be compared
with the list of occupational titles in the DOT. Any title found in another list but
not in the DOT would then become a candidate for an intensive job analysis.
Procedures should be designed to locate suitable jobs for analysis once they are
identified.
MEASUREMENT OF OCCUPATIONAL
CHARACTERISTICS
9. The worker trait and worker function scales should be reviewed and, where
it is appropriate, replaced with carefully developed multiple-item scales
that measure conceptually central aspects of occupational content.
The committee has found substantial reason to question the adequacy of
the worker trait and worker function scales. First, they do not appear in
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the aggregate to adequately reflect conceptually central aspects of occupational
content. They omit, for example, measures of such important features as the
organizational setting in which jobs occur and the degree of responsibility
entailed in jobs for decisions, materials, or supervision.4 At the same time they
include measures of interests, aptitudes, and temperaments, which are better
thought of as worker characteristics than as attributes of jobs.
Second, the existing scales have not been developed or validated in
accordance with current psychometric standards for scale construction, and
some of them have been shown (see chapter 7 and Appendix E) to have rather
low reliability. Moreover, they are very redundant. In chapter 7 we show that
most of the variation among occupations can be described by three factors, and
almost all the remaining variation by an additional three factors.
Third, many of the scales have limited use, as chapters 3 and 4 document.
In part, this is the result of the way they are published. Although scores on the
worker function scales (DATA, PEOPLE, and THINGS) are available for each DOT
occupation—because they are included as part of the occupational classification
code—scores on worker trait scales for each occupation in the third edition DOT
are available only in supplements. Ranges of scale scores are also published for
groups of occupations in volume 2 of the third edition DOT. Scores on the
worker traits scales for the fourth edition had not been published as of January
1980, although they are available on computer tape.5
The development of a new set of scales of occupational characteristics is a
research activity that should be undertaken prior to the publication of the next
edition of the DOT and then continued as an ongoing activity of the research unit.
The first step is to determine what occupational information is needed by major
users of the DOT, including the Employment Service. Suitable scales to elicit this
information should then be developed—and validated—using standard
psychometric procedures.
4Responsibility and supervision are highly relevant for job placement and for other
purposes as well, including the analysis of career ladders (identified by many
respondents to the user survey as highly desirable information to add to the DOT) and
equal employment opportunity issues.
5A tape containing all of the worker traits for the fourth edition (known as the DOT
master tape) may be obtained from the National Technical Information Service
(Document No. PB 298 315/AS).
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10. A research activity of first priority should be review of the training time
(GED and SVP), physical demand, and working condition scales.
Our review of DOT uses indicates that the training time, physical demand,
and working condition scales are used widely for making key determinations in
a variety of employment-related programs by government and other agencies.
In some instances the worker function (DATA, PEOPLE, and THINGS) scales are
inappropriately used as substitutes for training time scales. This may occur
because of lack of knowledge of the worker trait scales, since worker functions
are included in the basic occupational code, while worker traits are treated as
separate dimensions and, in the third edition DOT, were published in
supplementary volumes.
We believe the need for and interest in these occupational characteristics
are sufficient to warrant continuous effort and special publication by the
occupational analysis program.
CLASSIFICATION ISSUES
11. A major activity of the occupational analysis program should be
investigation of cross-occupational linkages that indicate possible
transferability of skills or experience.
Hitherto, the occupational analysis program has done comparative job
analysis only to the extent necessary to fit jobs into occupational units within
the established classification. The implicit assumption with respect to matching
workers and jobs has been that the classification structure itself will reveal the
range of possible matches.
In our judgment this is too narrow a use of the occupational analyst's skills
and too rigid a conception of what constitutes “similar” work. An informed
glance through the detailed occupational classification of the DOT reveals a
number of instances in which similar work performed in different work settings
results in two codes that differ at the most aggregated, one-digit level. This
experience can probably be repeated with any classification system yet devised.
A number of procedures to aid in identifying occupations for which the
required tasks are sufficiently alike to permit transfer of skills could be
proposed. Two that appear to have special promise are (1) the comparative
analysis of skill requirements via task analysis or other structured job analysis
procedures and (2) the empirical identification of “interchangeable” occupations
via the analysis of rates of naturally occurring occupational mobility. The basic
idea in the latter proposal is that if people
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who leave a particular occupation are especially likely to take up certain other
occupations, then those occupations are probably similar in their requirements,
and hence job applicants with experience at one occupation could work at the
others.
Job history data are currently collected routinely from job applicants by
local Employment Service offices. These data could be used to estimate rates of
movement between occupational categories that are specific to local labor
markets, and the validity of the suggested interchangeability could be reviewed
by trained analysts. If valid linkages emerged, those occupations with high
interchangeability rates could be listed together in job banks, could be matched
in the keyword or other automated systems, and could be listed for the use of
job placement interviewers. It is important to note that classifications for
placement purposes need not list each occupation only once. For example, a job
opening could be included at several different places within a job bank to
facilitate the job search process, in much the same way that books are cross-
referenced in a library catalogue. We urge full exploration of these possibilities.
12. The development of an automated procedure for matching job applicants
with job openings should continue, but the current keyword system should
not be accepted as optimal.
Appendix G presents an evaluation of the keyword system, the most
widely used method of computerized job matching attempted by the
Employment Service. The conclusions in Appendix G support the findings of
critics who have called the system inadequate and inadequately tested prior to
its implementation.
We wish to emphasize, however, the need for continued research and
experimentation in the use of automated data processing in both the job analysis
and placement operation of the Employment Service. The exploratory work
done by our staff (presented in Appendixes G and H) is suggestive of the
potential inherent in this tool for assessing and developing classifications. Time
and resources have limited the extent to which this exploration could be
undertaken, but we are convinced of its long-term value.
Experimental work in computerized job matching should continue in
tandem with the development of an improved classification. In this the
experience gained from the keywording operation should be carefully
evaluated. For example, the “complementary terms” concept used in
keywording may present an alternative to the very detailed and probably overly
inflexible coding system now used in the DOT. A simplified set of
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occupations associated with a range of complementary terms may serve the
purposes of placement better than either the nine-digit DOT code or the
occupational unit framework of the keyword system. In urging additional
experimental work, we wish to caution against the precipitous, large-scale
implementation of poorly or incompletely tested schemes. The optimal strategy
would be to conduct a series of small-scale studies before adopting any
particular scheme.
13. The classification system developed for the next edition of the DOT should
be compatible with the standard system implemented by the Office of
Federal Statistical Policy and Standards or its successor coordinating
federal agency. That is, explicit procedures should be developed to enable
the translation of occupational codes so that information can be organized
and reported using a standardized classification.
The relationship between the classification system used by the
Employment Service, embodied in the DOT, and that used by other governmental
agencies is a crucial issue. The committee believes that arguments for a
standardized classification for reporting occupational data are so compelling as
to leave no doubt of the importance of this goal. Within the context of this
report, the need for the Employment Service's operating statistics to be part of a
standardized system is clear. Therefore an essential task is to ensure that
occupational information generated by the Employment Service can be
translated to allow reporting in terms of a standardized occupational
classification.
Congress has established a National Occupational Information
Coordinating Committee (Public Law 94–482; October 12, 1976), which has as
one of its responsibilities the development and implementation of an
occupational information system “…which system shall include data on
occupational demand and supply based on uniform definitions, standardized
estimating procedures, and standardized occupational classifications….”
Beyond this legislative requirement the committee believes that an
understanding of the Employment Service's role in the labor market is essential
to its proper functioning and that for such an understanding, Employment
Service operating statistics must be related to aggregate data for the labor force.
Without a standardized classification system this connection is impossible to
make.
We believe that the occupational analysis program should take a lead role
in providing the material and expertise required to keep the Standard
Occupational Classification (SOC) up to date—a role that is compatible with its
activity in developing the SOC.
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OTHER NEEDED RESEARCH
14. Research priority should be given to developing criteria for defining
“occupations”—the aggregation problem.
What is an occupation? It is a set of jobs that are similar in some way, in
terms of tasks, duties, responsibilities, organizational or industrial setting,
status, etc. Occupational classifications group occupations in terms of their
similarity according to one or several of these criteria or still others.
Classifications differ in two ways: first, in terms of the criteria of similarity, the
grouping principle; and second, in terms of the level of aggregation, the number
of distinctions that are made between elements, or occupations, in the
classification. The 1970 Census classification, for example, contains 441
occupations, while the fourth edition DOT contains 12,099 occupations.
Obviously, the census occupations on the whole encompass a more
heterogeneous set of jobs than do the DOT occupations. Despite the greater
specificity of DOT occupations, however, there appears to be great variation from
one occupation to another in their degree of heterogeneity. For example, there
are 70 kinds of Sewing Machine Operator, Garment, with the same 6-digit code
(786.682), while there are 6 kinds of Secretary with the same 6-digit code
(201.362). Moreover, inspection of the occupational definitions suggests more
variability among the 6 secretarial occupations than among the 70 kinds of
sewing occupations. There appears to be no conceptual basis for delineating
boundary lines between occupations.
Research is needed both on the conceptual basis for defining occupations
and on the consistency with which occupational boundaries are drawn in the
fourth edition DOT, to provide a basis for revisions in the fifth edition. In
undertaking a review of the existing occupational categories in the fourth
edition DOT, attention should be paid to the possibiity that certain categories of
occupations (e.g., clerical or service occupations) are insufficiently
differentiated, or that certain categories (e.g., benchwork occupations) are
overly differentiated. We urge exploration of strategies for reviewing the
consistency of specificity of DOT occupations.
15. Basic research should be undertaken on the operation of labor markets to
improve understanding of the processes by which workers acquire jobs.
The Employment Service could do a great deal to improve its ability to
place workers in jobs through research on the processes by which workers
acquire jobs. In chapter 8 we proposed an empirical procedure for defining
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interchangeable clusters of jobs on the basis of occupational mobility rates. The
usefulness of such a procedure would be even greater with a better
understanding of occupational mobility processes in general. What kinds of jobs
tend to be open to workers with particular sorts of experience? Which jobs are
filled by those who have previously worked elsewhere, which are filled by
those just entering the labor force, and which are filled only by promotion from
within an establishment? To what extent do sex, age, or race continue to be
barriers to occupational opportunities, and are such barriers concentrated in
particular sectors of the labor force? This research is likely to be most fruitful if
it builds on institutional and segmented market approaches to labor market
analysis, since these approaches focus on the very job and market structures that
are at issue here.
The Employment Service, in particular the occupational analysis program,
is in a unique position to conduct research on such questions. Job history data
currently collected routinely in the course of job placement interviews and
establishment studies currently conducted on a regular basis for the purpose of
job analysis are valuable sources of data that should be exploited in the interest
of improving the ability to match workers and jobs.
These data sources should also be exploited to improve understanding of
career progressions, typical patterns of movement from job to job. When
respondents to the survey of DOT users were asked how future editions could be
improved to meet their needs better, the inclusion of career ladders was most
often mentioned; the majority indicated that they would find such information
helpful. While there undoubtedly is substantial variability in career
progressions, some indication of typical sequences of jobs would be very useful
for counseling purposes. Two existing data sources could be used to produce
such information. First, the job analysis schedules used by occupational analysts
include information on the relation of the job being analyzed to other jobs—
specifically, promotion lines, transfer lines, and lines of supervision. This
information could be used to describe typical career ladders within enterprises.
Second, the work history data collected routinely from job applicants in local
employment service offices could be used to describe typical career ladders
involving mobility among enterprises, in the manner discussed in chapter 8. We
urge that these possibilities be explored.
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ORGANIZATIONAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES
16. The leadership of the national office in the occupational analysis program
should be strengthened; greater attention should be given to coordination
of field center activities; and the lines of federal authority should be clearly
established.
In view of the intensive management study (Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc.,
1979) commissioned by the Department of Labor in tandem with its request to
the National Academy of Sciences for a study of long-range needs, the
committee has concerned itself only with those aspects of organization that are
directly related to the substantive content of the occupational analysis program.
In this context we strongly endorse the Booz, Allen & Hamilton
conclusion that strong leadership and increased coordination by the national
office are essential. Throughout our report (notably in chapters 5 and 6) are
specific instances of the costs that lack of leadership by the national office have
produced in terms of quality. We particularly support the follow-up
recommendation of the Office of Technical Support (U.S. Department of Labor,
1979b) that a written agreement between the Employment and Training
Administration and the host state of each occupational analysis field center lay
out clearly the rights and prerogatives of the federal government in the control
of field center activities.
The committee is not persuaded, however, that the Booz, Allen &
Hamilton recommendation that the number of field centers be halved is, in the
long run, a wise one. Although in the short run such a reduction may be a useful
way to eliminate those field centers whose contribution to the program has, for
a variety of reasons, been below the desirable level, in the long run,
geographical dispersion seems to us to be a strength, particularly in view of the
new trends in population dispersion currently taking place in the United States.
The problems of coordination by the national office may be reduced by a
reduction in the number of field centers, but the problems of communication
between the occupational analysis program and local office operating staff will
certainly be increased.
17. The collection and dissemination of occupational information by the
occupational analysis program should be a continuous process; activity
should not fluctuate with the timing of new editions of the DOT.
This recommendation follows from recommendation 1—that the program
should concentrate its effort on job analysis. Chapters 6 and 7 present evidence
of the costs, in terms of thoroughness and quality, of gearing the
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program so closely to the publication of the new edition. Beyond this, however,
we believe that to be most useful to the Employment Service's operating offices
and to other users, occupational information should be kept current by closely
monitoring the introduction of new jobs and changes in the content of existing
jobs.
18. Procedures followed in collecting data and developing the DOT should be
carefully documented and publicly described.
The committee found that many procedural decisions appear to be made on
an ad hoc basis and to be poorly documented. The lack of documentation,
experimentation, and research on the efficacy of the procedures used seems to
the committee to be one of the most serious deficiencies in the occupational
analysis program. Although we recognize that the Employment Service is an
operating agency whose purpose is to deliver service, such a service cannot be
delivered for the highly complex and continuously changing world with which
the Employment Service deals on the basis of ad hoc decisions that are never
documented or systematically communicated to persons in operational roles.
The lack of documentation makes the review and evaluation of Employment
Service occupational information difficult for users, who should be supplied
with this essential information.
19. The data produced for the DOT should be made publicly available.
As well as being underdocumented, the DOT is underpublished, in the sense
that a great deal of material of great value to researchers is not made easily
available. Public-use computer tapes and attendant documentation should be
created for each of the data sets used in the preparation of new editions of the
DOT and deposited in data archives such as the National Technical Information
Service and the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research at
the University of Michigan. For example, the third-to-fourth edition map, and
the 1966 and 1971 CPS tapes coded with DOT codes (and the March 1978 CPS tape
when it becomes available) should all be made publicly available.6 Public
access to data used in preparing the DOT can do nothing but improve the quality
of the DOT.
6The DOT master tape containing all of the worker trait codes for the fourth edition is
already available (see note 5). In addition, the committee deposited two magnetic tapes
with the National Technical Information Service and the Inter-University Consortium for
Political and Social Research: (1) the April 1971 Current Population Survey (N=60,441),
which includes third and fourth edition DOT codes, and (2) a summary tape of DOT
occupational characteristics, which was created from the 1971 CPS and provides average
DOT scores and factor-based scale scores for the expanded (N=574) 1970 Census
occupational classification (for details, see Appendix F).
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Second, for the benefit of users without ready access to computers, data on the
characteristics of each occupation (currently the worker traits and worker
functions) should be published, with exact scores for each DOT occupation.
20. A tabulation program should be instituted immediately to aggregate
monthly data from Employment Service operations to the revised Standard
Occupational Classification unit groups used in the 1980 Census of
Population and subsequent current population surveys.
The current version of the Standard Occupational Classification has
attempted to provide an interim solution to the problem of compatibility by
allocating each of the 12,099 nine-digit codes of the fourth edition DOT to one of
the approximately 600 four-digit unit groups of the SOC. A similar crossover
listing between the classifications, to be used in the 1980 Census of Population
and the SOC unit groups, has been developed by the Bureau of the Census. It
therefore becomes possible, if computerized operating statistics are available at
a nine-digit level, to rearrange these data into the census classification (or any
other classification system providing such a crossover listing).
Both recommendation 20 and recommendation 13 are closely related to the
congressional instruction to the secretary of labor to institute a uniform
reporting program, under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act,
using a detailed occupational or training code, a term defined as “any
occupational or training code equivalent in detail to the Standard Occupational
Classification at the four-digit level” (Public Law 95–524; October 27, 1978;
Section 313 (g)(31)).
21. A systematic program should be instituted to communicate additions and
revisions of occupational definitions and their classification promptly to all
operating staff in the Employment Service as well as to other interested
persons.
It is crucial to the successful operation of the Employment Service and to
other major users of the DOT as well that the occupational information provided
by the DOT be up to date. It is in those sectors of the occupational structure that
are most rapidly changing that the need for information is greatest. For this
reason it is insufficient to rely on the periodic publication of new editions of the
DOT. A mechanism should be established to transmit information continuously
on new and changing occupations and on newly established linkages between
occupations to all concerned persons. What we have in mind is a monthly news
bulletin, issued by the occupational analysis program and circulated to all
Employment Service personnel and
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to other interested parties, and an annual supplement to the DOT incorporating all
such information produced in the preceding year.
22. The next edition of the DOT should not be issued until substantial
improvements in the occupational analysis program have been made,
following the recommendations made here.
There is no need to rush to a fifth edition of the DOT, especially if a
program of continuous updating and dissemination of occupational information
is developed as proposed above. Such a program would serve the needs of users
for up-to-date occupational information by keeping the fourth edition current.
This would permit time for a fifth edition to be fundamentally redesigned on the
basis of the research proposed here—on the classification structure, the
measurement of occupational characteristics, the definition of occupations, data
collection procedures, and so on. We would expect such research to continue
indefinitely and to serve as the basis for further modifications of subsequent
editions of the DOT. Hence we are not proposing delay until completion of a
single massive research effort, but rather delay until a permanent, ongoing
research effort has been well begun and has borne fruit.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
analysis program
