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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. 1 Introduction and Summary INTRODUCTION During the depression of the 1930s, Congress established a national employment service to assist workers in finding suitable employment and employers in finding employees (Wagner-Peyser Act of 1933). Although the program of the U.S. Employment Service has undergone significant changes since the 1930s, its basic aims have not been altered. A program of occupational research was also initiated “to furnish public employment offices…with information and techniques [to] facilitate proper classification and placement of work seekers” (U.S. Department of Labor, 1939:xi). Throughout the 1930s this occupational research program was conducted under the supervision of a technical board, the majority of whose members were nominated by the Social Science Research Council and the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1939 this research program produced the first edition of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Subsequent editions of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles were produced in 1949, 1965, and 1977. While they vary somewhat in their coverage of the economy (the first edition being least comprehensive) and in the details of their structure, each edition was designed to be an operational tool for use in the day-to-day functioning of Employment Service offices. Each edition was intended to provide a catalogue of the occupational titles used in the U.S. economy as well as reliable descriptions of the type of work performed in each occupation. In the early years,

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 2 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. officials of the Employment Service believed a dictionary was of great practical importance because “getting qualified workers into appropriate jobs is a task that can be most adequately performed when the transition is based upon a thorough knowledge of both worker and job” (U.S. Department of Labor, 1939:xi). Prior to the publication of the first edition of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, each local office of the national Employment Service developed its own information about occupations and gave its own individual meanings to the job titles used in operating the Employment Service's placement system (U.S. Department of Labor, 1965a:ix). There was as a result no uniform language for the exchange of occupational information among Employment Service staff within local offices, between offices in a particular locale, or between the various local offices and the national office of the Employment Service. Work on the Dictionary of Occupational Titles was begun to remedy this situation. Subsequent revisions were undertaken to reflect changes in the occupational composition of the work force (e.g., the addition of new occupations reflecting changes in the technologies of production), to improve the accessibility of information contained in it, and to facilitate job matching. CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE Throughout the last 4 decades the occupational titles contained in the various editions of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles have served as the Employment Service's basic tool for matching workers and jobs. The Dictionary of Occupational Titles has also played an important role in establishing skill and training requirements and developing Employment Service testing batteries for specific occupations. Recently, however, the role of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles has been called into question as a result of planned changes in the operation of the Employment Service. A plan to automate the operations of Employment Service offices using a descriptive system of occupational keywords rather than occupational titles has led to a claim that a dictionary of occupational titles and the occupational research program that produces it are outmoded. Since the automated keyword system does not rely explicitly on defined occupational titles, it is claimed that the new system would reduce costs by eliminating the need for a research program to supply the occupational definitions. In fiscal 1977 the program cost almost $3 million. In light of these considerations the committee was asked to evaluate the future need for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. Neither the committee nor the Department of Labor confined the question exclusively to needs within the Employment Service—although the needs of the

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 3 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Employment Service were a primary consideration. It was recognized that the use of such a dictionary by a wide range of government and private organizations and individuals might justify its continued production even if it were no longer a major operating tool of the Employment Service. In such a case, however, responsibility for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and its occupational research program might be reasonably transferred to an agency other than the Employment Service. The committee was charged first with deciding whether there is a continuing need for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The committee sought to answer this question by (1) surveying purchasers of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, (2) interviewing major federal users of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, (3) surveying selected state users, (4) compiling a bibliography of its use in social science research, (5) interviewing national and state Employment Service staff, and (6) visiting local Employment Service offices. On the basis of information gathered from these sources (see chapters 3 and 4) the committee concluded that there is an important and continuing need for a comprehensive, reliable catalogue of occupations in the U.S. economy as well as descriptions of the work performed in each occupation. The committee was next charged to consider a set of questions concerning the adequacy and usefulness of the current edition of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and the types of research that would be needed to produce a more reliable and useful document. The committee's concerns in this regard centered on the reliability and validity of the occupational data collected and analyzed by the occupational analysis program of the Employment Service, the usefulness of the classification structure of the current edition, and the potential for improvement in the document through revisions in the kinds of data collected and data collection procedures. The general conclusion of the committee is that the Dictionary of Occupational Titles requires improvement in a number of respects to render it fully adequate to meet both the current needs of the Employment Service and the needs of other users. The committee was also charged to consider organizational changes required to produce a more adequate Dictionary of Occupational Titles. In considering this question the committee benefited from a short-term management study conducted during the first stage of its work by an independent contractor to the Employment Service (Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc., 1979). This study describes the problems inherent in the organizational structure of the program and informed the committee concerning changes in staffing and resources that might be required to produce a more useful and reliable Dictionary of Occupational Titles. In the committee's judgment the major organizational change required to

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 4 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. improve the Dictionary of Occupational Titles is the establishment of a permanent, professional research unit to develop and carry out an ongoing program of occupational research in several areas identified by the committee. Finally, the committee has undertaken—to the extent possible given constraints of time and resources—a conceptual review of the Employment Service's automated matching program. ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT Chapter 2 contains a detailed description of the current edition of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles to suggest to readers the nature of the document that is the main focus of the report. Chapters 3 and 4 describe the ways that the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and associated materials are used inside and outside the Employment Service. Chapters 5 and 6 describe how the Dictionary of Occupational Titles is produced: chapter 5 focuses on the organization of the occupational analysis program of the Employment Service, the unit charged with producing the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, and chapter 6 describes the process by which the current edition was created. Chapters 7 and 8 evaluate the Dictionary of Occupational Titles: chapter 7 focuses on the adequacy of the data it contains, and chapter 8 discusses the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and other classification systems as tools for assessing the similarity of occupations. Chapter 9 presents the committee's conclusions and recommendations. In addition to the nine chapters of the report there are eight appendixes providing data or detailed analysis of specific topics. SUMMARY CONTENT AND STRUCTURE OF THE DOT Chapter 2 provides a description of the content and structure of the current —fourth edition—Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT). The DOT contains information on 12,099 occupations and an additional 16,702 related or synonymous occupational titles. Each occupation is identified by a nine-digit code and is defined on the basis of the tasks performed. The nine-digit code represents a classification structure based on the type of work performed (the first three digits) and the complexity of work in relation to data, people, and things (the second three digits); the final three

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 5 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. digits are a unique numerical identification for each occupation. The chapter also describes briefly a set of 41 occupational characteristics,1 known as worker traits, on which information is available for each occupation (on computer tape and in to-be-published supplements to the DOT). In the course of developing the occupational description for the DOT, analysts rate each occupation for these worker traits, which include the aptitudes, temperaments, and interests necessary for adequate performance; the training time necessary to prepare for an occupation; the physical demands of the occupation; and the working conditions under which the occupation typically occurs. In sum, the DOT is simultaneously a dictionary providing definitions of occupations, a classification system, and a source of data on occupational characteristics. USE OF THE DOT BY THE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE Chapter 3 describes the major ways in which the DOT is used within the Employment Service. First, the DOT provides a classification structure for organizing information about job openings in self-search job banks located in local Employment Service offices. Second, the dictionary aspect and, to a more limited extent, the classification structure are used by placement interviewers and employment counselors in Employment Service offices as aids in matching job applicants with job openings. Data on occupational characteristics (the worker traits and worker functions) are used only occasionally in the job placement process, mainly by employment counselors as aids in exploring vocational options. In addition to its direct use as a placement and counseling tool the DOT serves as a data source for the preparation of a series of career brochures, and the classification structure serves to organize the data for the monthly publication of labor market information by the national office for use in local Employment Service offices. Finally, the DOT is used by the Division of Testing and the Division of Labor Certification, two subunits of the Employment Service. The Division of Testing develops tests with a specific orientation toward the aptitudes, skills, etc. that are relevant to the worker traits identified in the DOT supplements; these tests are used in local Employment Service offices for counseling purposes. The Division of Labor Certification uses the DOT to identify specific occupations for which the demand for workers exceeds 1Data are collected on 46 variables, three worker functions (DATA, PEOPLE, and THINGS) and 43 worker traits. However, three of the worker traits, representing aspects of general educational development (GED), are usually combined into a summary measure of GED. Hence in many published lists, only 41 worker traits are shown.

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 6 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. the available supply of qualified American workers—which is the legal requirement for the certification of foreign workers. In sum, extensive use is made of the DOT within the Employment Service. USE OF THE DOT OUTSIDE THE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE Chapter 4 describes major uses of the DOT outside the Employment Service. Indication of the extent of such use is provided by the fact that 148,145 copies of the third edition DOT were sold in the course of its 13-year life (1965– 1977) and more than 115,000 copies of the fourth edition were sold in the first 21 months following publication in December 1977 (not including 30,000 copies distributed within the Employment Service). To determine the extent and nature of the use of the DOT, committee staff conducted three studies: a questionnaire survey of a probability sample of purchasers of the fourth edition DOT; site visits to federal agencies identified as major users, supplemented by a questionnaire survey of DOT users in state agencies; and a literature review of social science research uses of the DOT. The survey of DOT purchasers revealed that a wide variety of organizations use the DOT in their work, including educational institutions, government agencies, private for-profit companies, and nonprofit agencies. These organizations use the DOT for a variety of purposes, the most prominent being career and vocational counseling, library reference, rehabilitation counseling, personnel management, and employment placement. The dictionary aspect is most widely used, but a majority of purchasers use the classification as well; other parts of the DOT are less widely used. Most purchasers (88 percent) report that discontinuing the DOT would disrupt their work, and about a third (36 percent) report that the disruption would be serious. Site visits to a number of federal agencies revealed heavy reliance on the DOT, as did responses from the special state agency user sample. The Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training of the Department of Labor, for example, uses the DOT's measure of training time requirements for occupations (specific vocational preparation) as a standard against which to certify apprenticeship programs for skilled trades; the bureau also uses the DOT classification for record-keeping purposes. The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor relies on the DOT as a framework for collecting, organizing, and reporting various types of labor market information. The Bureau of Disability Insurance of the Social Security Administration makes extensive use of the DOT, especially the worker trait and worker function data, for the purpose of disability determinations and

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 7 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. judgments as to what other jobs a disabled person might be able to perform. The Veterans Administration makes similar use of the DOT materials as an aid in rehabilitation and vocational counseling, as do vocational rehabilitation programs in a number of states. Finally, occupational information from the DOT is used by vocational educators in a number of federal and state agencies for the purpose of program planning, curriculum development, and counseling. The DOT has increasingly gained the attention of social researchers. More than 150 research articles have been published since 1965 that either use data from the DOT or provide evaluations of the quality of the DOT; an annotated bibliography of these publications appears in Appendix C. The DOT code is frequently used to describe the socioeconomic distribution of subject samples (in psychological studies) and to match experimental groups with control groups with respect to occupational category and skill level. The worker traits and worker functions have been used in many capacities, most notably in describing the distribution of job characteristics across various sectors of the labor market and in examining shifts in labor force composition. Economists often turn to the worker trait and worker function scales when studying the determinants of wage structure, and psychologists use this information in studying the relationship between occupational characteristics and psychological functioning as well as effects on performance. In addition, the DOT has been a valuable resource in the more applied areas of vocational psychology and counseling. Finally, a number of new scales, inventories, and classification systems have incorporated DOT data and scales. The DOT has served as a model or provided basic data for a number of other important occupational classifications, most notably the new Standard Occupational Classification (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1977), developed by the Office of Federal Statistical Policy and Standards to promote the standardization of federal occupational statistics, and the International Standard Classification of Occupations (International Labour Office, 1958, 1968). Although the DOT and its associated materials have been widely used by many individuals and organizations outside the Employment Service, other products of the occupational analysis program have not had a similarly wide impact; as far as we can ascertain, their use is restricted almost entirely to the Employment Service. THE OCCUPATIONAL ANALYSIS PROGRAM Chapter 5 describes the organization of the occupational analysis program of the U.S. Employment Service. The DOT is produced by the Division of

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 8 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Occupational Analysis in Washington, D.C., working in conjunction with 11 field centers located around the country. Job analysts working in the field centers collect the bulk of the data on which the DOT is based by visiting business establishments, observing workers in jobs, and recording and scaling the information observed. Currently, there are 129 positions in the field centers and 15 in the national office; of those 15, only 10.5 are in the Occupational Analysis Branch (the others are in the Job Search Branch). The national office is charged with directing the technical aspects of the work of the 11 field centers, including planning new editions of the DOT and other publications, designing data collection procedures and research efforts, and coordinating the activities of the field centers. The field centers are, however, administratively responsible to the employment agencies of the states in which they are located and are subject to state regulations. This arrangement creates substantial confusion and tension regarding lines of authority. In addition, the national office has had administrative difficulties for several years, experiencing a rapid turnover of leadership and a severe reduction of staff. As a result the national office has not provided effective leadership to the field centers—leadership that is crucial to the success of an extremely complex data collection task. About 80 percent of field center staff time is devoted to work related to the production of the DOT. The remainder is spent on the preparation of career guides and brochures; providing training and technical assistance to government agencies and other organizations on the products, methods, and techniques of occupational analysis; and carrying out special projects at the request of host state Employment Service agencies. PRODUCTION OF THE FOURTH EDITION DOT Chapter 6 describes the procedures used to produce the fourth edition DOT. The information included in the DOT is based on on-site observation of jobs as they are performed in diverse business establishments and, for jobs that are difficult to observe, on information obtained from professional and trade associations. More than 75,000 on-site job analyses were conducted in preparation for the fourth edition DOT. The sampling of jobs for observation was a complicated and somewhat indirect process: First, the national office assigned to each field center responsibility for coverage of particular industries; these industries were sometimes very broadly specified (e.g., retail trade) and sometimes very narrowly specified (e.g., button manufacturing). Second, establishments within each industry were chosen for analysis, with some effort being made to choose “typical” establishments; the final selection, however, was

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 9 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. dependent on the willingness of establishments to cooperate. Third, some or all jobs within an establishment were chosen for observation in negotiation with the management of the establishment. In conducting job analyses within an establishment the analyst prepared a description of major work processes, a table of organization, and a staffing schedule showing the distribution of jobs within the establishment. Using these materials, analysts selected individual jobs for analysis; jobs that were similar to an occupation described in the third edition DOT were less likely to be analyzed. The selected jobs were observed, and/or incumbents or supervisors were interviewed. For each analyzed job the analyst prepared a job analysis schedule, recording the tasks entailed in the job, the machines, tools, or work aids used, the working conditions, and a variety of other information. On this basis a description of the job was prepared, and the job was rated with respect to 46 characteristics (worker functions and worker traits). These procedures were modified somewhat as the fourth edition deadline approached to speed completion of the data collection phase. Job analysis schedules produced from 1965 to 1976, intended for use in compiling the fourth edition, were filed in the North Carolina field center according to third edition codes. The actual writing of occupational definitions for the fourth edition did not begin until 1976, the year before the scheduled publication of the fourth edition. Definitions were prepared mainly on the basis of the material included in the job analysis schedules. Both the coverage of occupations and the quality of the descriptions proved to be very uneven. Some third edition occupations had no new documentation, while others had an excess —the record is 652 job analysis schedules for Materials Handler. Some schedules contained only the notation “same as third edition,” and for some occupations no job analysis schedule was available but only a letter from a professional or trade association. Furthermore, procedures for deciding how to combine individual job descriptions into composite occupational definitions were very unclear. ASSESSMENT OF THE OCCUPATIONAL INFORMATION IN THE DOT Chapter 7 provides an evaluation of the quality of the DOT as a source of occupational information, with particular attention to the implications of the procedures described in chapter 6. Available data make it difficult to evaluate the representativeness of the coverage of jobs in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. There are, however, indirect indications that the coverage has been disproportionately concentrated in the manufacturing

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 10 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. industries and that certain other industries, such as trade and services, are substantially underrepresented. A second observation about the source data used to derive the occupational descriptions in the DOT has to do with the number of job analysis schedules underlying each description. About 16 percent of the occupational descriptions included in the fourth edition DOT were prepared without the benefit of a single job analysis schedule, 29 percent were based on information from one job analysis schedule, and 19 percent were based on information from two schedules; thus nearly two thirds of the occupations described in the fourth edition DOT were based on the observation of fewer than three jobs. Although there may indeed be a number of occupations for which multiple on-site observations would be redundant and wasteful, in the absence of information regarding the heterogeneity or homogeneity of job content within occupations, the extent to which the occupational descriptions rest on such limited observations raises some question about their adequacy. The conjunction of these two attributes of the data collection procedures— the nonrepresentative distribution of establishments visited and the fact that most of the occupational descriptions are based on two or fewer job analyses— may well be related to a third feature: the very uneven distribution of numbers of occupations identified within the major occupation categories. In relation to their share of the labor force, the number of specific occupations identified under the processing, machine trades, and benchwork categories is substantially greater, and the number in the clerical and sales and service categories is substantially smaller than would be expected (Table 7-3). There is, again, no reason to expect these two distributions to be identical. Nevertheless, if there is a tendency for each job analysis to produce an occupational description (as the number of job analyses per occupation suggests), the fact that fewer job analyses were performed for clerical workers, for example, may certainly be expected to have an effect on the number of specific clerical occupations identified. Finally, with regard to the quality of source data, three fourths of the job analysis schedules used in compiling the fourth edition DOT do not meet the standards specified for a complete job analysis; the propensity to depart from standards increased during the period just prior to completion of the fourth edition DOT. At that time there was also a shift away from the preparation of new job analysis schedules toward the verification of existing schedules. The remainder of chapter 7 is devoted to an evaluation of the worker function and worker trait ratings made in the course of job analyses and included in the collation of data available for each DOT occupation. These variables purport to measure the complexity of occupations, the training

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 11 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. time required to prepare for them, the aptitudes, temperaments, and interests necessary for adequate job performance, the physical demands of occupations, and the working conditions under which they typically are performed. As a comprehensive source of occupational information these variables pose several difficulties. First, many are of dubious validity. Developed in the 1950s by piecing together available materials, these variables may not capture well important variability in the job content of today's economy. Second, the measurement of these variables is, on the whole, not highly reliable. A staff study of ratings by job analysts (reported in detail in Appendix E) found the reliability of ratings to be moderate on the average and very poor with respect to certain variables. Third, the 46 occupational characteristics appear to be highly redundant. A factor analysis of these variables conducted by the staff revealed that six factors account for 95 percent of the common variance—factors measuring substantive complexity, motor skills, physical demands, management activity, interpersonal skills, and undesirable working conditions. On the basis of this analysis the committee has concluded that the worker traits and worker functions require thorough review, first at the conceptual level to determine what kind of occupational information is needed by the Employment Service and by other users and second at the technical level to determine how such information can best be generated. One suspicion regarding these data can be discounted. Charges had been made that the worker function variables in the third edition DOT underrated occupations filled mainly by women. A comparison of scores on these variables for the third and fourth editions suggests that while the charges were substantially correct regarding the third edition, the fourth edition scores are apparently free of bias. Despite deficiencies in the worker function and worker trait data for the fourth edition DOT, they remain the single most comprehensive set of occupational information available anywhere. THE CLASSIFICATION OF OCCUPATIONS FOR JOB- WORKER MATCHING Chapter 8 evaluates the classification structure of the DOT from the standpoint of its usefulness in matching job applicants with job openings and considers how it might be improved. If each job applicant knew precisely which occupations he or she was qualified for and willing to work at, no classification would be needed other than a list of job titles falling within each occupational category. However, this is not the case for most job applicants. Typically, a particular worker can do many jobs, and many workers do, in fact, hold many different kinds of jobs in the course of their work lives. Therefore for the Employment Service to serve job seekers best

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 12 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. a mechanism should be available for matching each job applicant not only with jobs similar to those at which he or she has already worked or is specifically trained but with all jobs that the applicant could perform adequately. To do this requires that sets of “interchangeable” jobs be identified and that they be brought to the attention of the job seeker and of Employment Service placement staff. Currently, most job placements by the Employment Service (about 75 percent in one center visited) are made via a self-search procedure in which job applicants peruse a list of job openings organized by DOT code. As a result “interchangeable” occupations tend to become limited to those with relatively similar codes as catalogued in successively finer detail by the first, second, third, etc. digits of the classification structure. However, a knowledgeable examination of the DOT makes it obvious that many occupations listed in different major (first digit) groups are interchangeable. Although the worker trait arrangement developed for the third edition DOT had as its rationale the illumination of cross-category linkages, it is clear from our review of Employment Service operations that it did not serve the purpose effectively; indeed, the worker trait arrangement was seldom used. The committee has concluded that such linkages must be developed as part of the research activity of the occupational analysis program and incorporated into the placement operation on a systematic basis so that the information is available to an applicant using the microfiche listings in the job bank as well as to placement staff. To cite two simple examples, one cannot expect an applicant looking for a job as a ticket taker to know that openings are listed under 344.667–010 (Ticket Taker, Amusement and Recreation) and under 911.667– 010 (Ticket Taker, Ferryboat) or one with experience as a radio dispatcher to know that both 379.362–010 (Dispatcher, Radio) and 919.162–010 (Dispatcher, Traffic or System) may include possible job openings. There are, as noted, obvious cross-category linkages that are not revealed by the classification structure in the fourth edition DOT. Beyond these, however, there are undoubtedly many occupations whose similarity is less immediately obvious. The trained occupational analysts in the field centers and the national office are probably aware of many such linkages,2 but no mechanism exists for incorporating such knowledge into the system, nor is any effort specifically directed at uncovering this interchangeability. The committee recommends that procedures for communicating information on cross-occupational linkages be established and that 2In fact, the New York field center has devised a set of such linkages for local use, although we were not able to ascertain the extent to which it was in operation.

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 13 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. formal studies in this area be instituted. Such studies should exploit recent developments in the methodology of occupational analysis, such as task analysis and other forms of structured job analysis, and in the theory of vocational choice. These developments are reviewed in chapter 8; particular attention is devoted to two leading vocational theories that have developed classification schemes for matching workers and jobs: the Minnesota theory of work adjustment and Holland's theory of careers. In addition, the committee explored an alternative approach, the use of rates of naturally occurring mobility, to define clusters of interchangeable jobs. Although the fact that many workers actually do move from one occupation to another is not a necessary condition for assuming that those who can do one job can also do the other, it is a sufficient condition. The committee believes that an optimal approach to the identification of clusters of interchangeable occupations would be to combine analysis of the similarity of job content, especially with respect to skill requirements, with analysis of naturally occurring patterns of occupational mobility. The committee recommends that consideration be given to the development of means of listing job openings that will group interchangeable occupations, whether defined by skill transferability or empirically on the basis of actually occurring mobility. This need not necessitate modifying the classification structure; alternatively, flexible listing formats could be explored, including multiple listings of jobs in the manner of cross-classifications in library card catalogues. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Chapter 9 presents the conclusions and recommendations of the committee. On the basis of its analysis the committee concludes that there is a strong and continuing need both within and outside the U.S. Employment Service for the kind of information provided by the DOT but that substantial improvements in the procedures and products of the occupational analysis program are required in order to meet the national need for occupational information. To effect this improvement, we make 3 general recommendations and 19 specific recommendations. The general recommendations are the following: 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

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 14 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The program should discontinue the publication of career guides. 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. 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. The specific recommendations are grouped into five general areas: 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 15 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. 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. 10. A research activity of first priority should be review of the training time (GED and SVP), physical demand, and working condition scales. 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. 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. 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. Other Needed Research 14. Research priority should be given to developing criteria for defining “occupations”—the aggregation problem. 15. Basic research should be undertaken on the operation of labor markets to improve understanding of the processes by which workers acquire jobs. 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

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 16 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. coordination of field center activities, and the lines of federal authority should be clearly established. 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. 18. Procedures followed in collecting data and developing the DOT should be carefully documented and publicly described. 19. The data produced for the DOT should be made publicly available. 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. 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. 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. SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIALS The report contains eight appendixes that provide additional technical data or extended analysis of particular topics. Appendix A presents the questionnaire used in the probability survey of DOT purchasers (discussed in chapter 4) with response frequencies. Appendix B presents detailed reports of uses of the DOT by three major federal users, based on site visits to each of the agencies: the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training of the Department of Labor, the Bureau of Disability Insurance of the Social Security Administration, and the Veterans Administration. Appendix C is an annotated bibliography of research uses of the DOT, with approximately 150 entries. Appendix D provides a bibliography of publications of the occupational analysis program, including publications of both the national office and the field centers. Appendix E is a study of the reliability of measurement of DOT worker functions and worker traits. Appendix F

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INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 17 original typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the retained, and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution. provides scores for selected worker function and worker trait variables for each of the categories of the 1970 Census detailed occupational classification; these are intended to be an aid to researchers. The two remaining appendixes serve as background to chapter 8: Appendix G assesses the Employment Service's keyword system, an automated system for matching job applicants with job openings, and appendix H discusses the use of occupational mobility data to evaluate and construct occupational classifications.