Abiity to Manipulate Is A Big Deal

     Here is an excerpt from a news release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued on February 21, 2019:

... Almost all workers were required to use fine manipulation (97.0 percent) and gross manipulation (99.4 percent). ...

     Note that Social Security Ruling 96-9p says that  "any significant manipulative limitation of an individual's ability to handle and work with small objects with both hands will result in a significant erosion of the unskilled sedentary occupational base." It seems to me that that it would now be more accurate to say that even the loss of manipulation results in a significant erosion of the entire occupational base, without regard to exertional level and without regard to the distinction between gross and fine manipulation.
     I have checked with Social Security. This news release was based on a study done at the behest of the Social Security Administration and is part of the effort to produce a new occupational information system. 

     Here are some other excerpts with less immediate importance:

• Approximately 31.5 percent of workers had preparation time requirements that included more than a short demonstration and up to 1 month of preparation and 19.0 percent were required to have between 2 years and 4 years of preparation time. 
• High school was the most common minimum education level for workers in 2018, with 40.7 percent of jobs requiring at least a high school diploma. 
• There was no minimum education level required for 31.5 percent of jobs, while a bachelor’s degree was required for 17.9 percent of workers. 
• On-the-job training was required for 76.8 percent of all civilian workers in 2018. Prior work experience was required for 47.0 percent of workers and 33.0 percent of workers were required to have completed pre-employment training. 
• A medium strength level was required for 35.5 percent of workers, while a sedentary strength level and a light strength level were required by 26.6 percent each. A heavy work strength level was present for 9.6 percent of workers and a very heavy work strength level accounted for the remaining 1.7 percent of workers. 
• Traditional keyboarding was required for 63.3 percent of workers. 

     There is nothing in this summary showing the number or percentage of jobs at, let's say, the sedentary level where the specific vocational preparation time was 30 days or less, the definition of unskilled work. If you're at all familiar with these matters, you know that's a critical question. BLS has released some access to the underlying data. I can do some searches on it but I'm unable to do a combined search for both unskilled and sedentary jobs. I'm not saying you can't do such a search. I'm just saying I can't. I hope others with more familiarity and more skill than me can take a look at this database. I'm going to take a wild guess that Social Security already knows the answer to this question.