On March 18, 2023, Charis Clark and Karen Litschgi of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) gave a presentation to the American Board of Vocational Experts (ABVE) on the Occupational Requirements Survey: Date and Upcoming Changes. By Freedom of Information Act request I have obtained the Powerpoint slide deck they used for the presentation. (I appreciate the Department of Labor's promptness in responding to my request.) I don't see any surprises in it but if you're interested in what's going on with Social Security's effort to have BLS create a new occupational information system for use in determining disability you should take a look. As boring as this may seem, it's vitally important to the future of Social Security disability determination. The seemingly never-ending process to develop a new system deserves close scrutiny. I don't trust Social Security on this. I'm not sure that anyone who knows much about this trusts Social Security.
Below are links to the original Powerpoint version and to a version that I printed to PDF. If you're using the PDF version, you will see links in the upper left hand corner of the screens leading to notes apparently used by the presenters. Those notes were apparently not visible to the audience. If you use the Powerpoint version, those notes are visible at the bottom of the screen.
5 comments:
Looks very interesting, but I can't access either the PowerPoint or the PDF. Thanks.
I met Karen at a conference about 10 years ago. She had been working on a DOT replacement for a few years already at that time. I told her I was from SSA and we both just shook our heads at what SSA was doing about vocational info.
They need to do something, I'm tired of surveillance system monitor, toll taker, ticket taker, etc.
I don't trust Social Security on this. I'm not sure that anyone who knows much about this trusts Social Security.
For sure, but it's not like SSA will ever actually get around to creating anything.
If done correctly, I suspect there are going to be some big surprises.
At my pre-Social Security job we started our no training beyond a high school diploma employees answering phones and dealing with walk-ins, then would move to handling and sorting in going and outgoing documents and filing. DOT said we were moving them from an SVP 4 job to an SVP 2 (possibly 3) job but the phone system was freaking simple it rarely took even 10 minutes to handle a 20 line system. Imagine my surprise as a baby ALJ to learn what I considered a low skill entry position was semi-skilled and the more advanced job was considered simpler.
In pre-Federal government days I was in-house and our HR director was hellbent on updating job descriptions and more importantly job qualifications. Many a manager was irate that he was reducing bachelor’s degree to associates or specific certificates. Three years of experience cut to a year and opened up slots to no experience.
His crusade was started because his brother an HR director at a facility repairing and maintaining large equipment across town. The powers that be were considering a major technology upgrade and were convinced they’d need to replace at least half the mechanics to get enough people who could run the diagnostic equipment and deal with the onboard computers the newer equipment would use. They were talking layoffs or even closing and relocating the facility to get rid of people.
My HR guy’s brother looked at the computer setup, obviously didn’t understand the mechanical terms but saw what the OS was like and argued that nearly every guy at the shop could operate the system. The folks at HQ finally agreed to install one workstation. VP for HooHawnedness calls the chief mechanic at the shop and asks how bad is it going with the workstation. Chief replies, it’s hell because they are all mad at me that all the workstations aren’t equipped with the system.
DOT dates back to when many offices were booting the computer operating system off a floppy and you had to have at least some knowledge of the command line. Even once in a program it was all key commands. We had keyboard overlays showing the Word Star then WordPerfect key commands.
Last HVAC work I had done. Technician tells me what is up, he needs a part. Says let me see if I’ve got one on the truck, uses his work phone to check the inventory of the truck. Ok not on the truck let me check the office, checks database for the office finds it enters delivery order. Tells me he’s going to sign out for lunch and will get back on it when the part arrives. I ask if I need to hang around for the delivery. No, the courier will deliver to wherever my phone is. Gets part installed. Pops on a dongle with a little fan and measures air flow at the register and temperature. It checks out. Snaps another dongle on, swipes my credit card and sends receipt to my email.
The skill level for a lot of jobs using technology and equipment will fall while the skill level for a lot of jobs that didn’t use any tech and were muscle power or routine activity jobs are going to require more skill than when DOT was created.
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