ingrid expert workshop new skills for new jobs: tools for harmonising the measurement of occupations...

InGRID Expert WorkshopNew skills for new jobs: Tools for harmonising the measurement of occupations AIAS Amsterdam, 10 -12 February 2014

The design principles of ISCO-08:

Challenges for coding occupations globally

David Hunter, Department of Statistics

International Labour Office

The design principles of ISCO-08: Challenges for coding occupations globally

International Standard Classification of Occupations 2008 (ISCO-08)

• Endorsed by the ILO Governing Body in 2008 it is known as ISCO-08 and replaces ISCO-88

• Structure, group definitions and correspondence with ISCO-88 available on ILO Website or on request

• Published in English– And in French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian as soon as possible

• Index of occupational titles will be available very soon• Used in European Union (EU) collections from 2010• Structure is available in all EU languages from Eurostat

– Eurostat Web discussion forum to support implementation is available to all countries

• Hierarchically structured classification comprising:– 10 major groups– 43 sub-major groups– 130 minor groups– 436 unit groups


What is ISCO used for?

International reporting, comparison and exchange of statistical and administrative data on occupation

A model for the development of national and regional classifications of occupations

Used directly in countries that have not developed their own national classifications


Uses of occupation classifications

Statistics from censuses, household surveys, employer surveys and other sources (big data?). • Detailed observations about jobs are organized into meaningful and useful

groups for analysis

Administrative and policy-related activities

• matching job seekers with job vacancies• educational planning • management of employment related international migration

Providing statistics on

• job seekers and job vacancies• numbers of places and enrolments in training programmes• Migrant and expatriate labour• Employment numbers, wages, hours worked etc.


Underlying concepts –ISCO-08

• Job : a set of tasks and duties performed, or meant to be performed, by one person including for an employer or in self employment.

• Occupation: a set of jobs whose main tasks and duties are characterised by a high degree of similarity: – A person may be associated with an occupation through the main job

currently held, a second job, or a job previously held• Occupations are organized into groups according to skill level and

skill specialization:– Skill level is applied mainly at the top (major group) level of the

classification.– Within each major group occupations are arranged into unit groups,

minor groups and sub-major groups, primarily on the basis of aspects of skill specialization.


Skill – the ability to carry out the tasks and duties of a job

Skill level: the complexity and range of tasks and duties performed in an occupation:– Measured operationally by considering:

The nature of the work performed in an occupation in relation to the characteristic tasks and duties defined for each ISCO-08 skill level (new for ISCO-08)

And/or

The level of formal education

The amount of informal on-the-job training and/or previous experience in a related occupation

required for competent performance of the tasks and duties

Skill specialization the field of knowledge required the tools and machinery used the materials worked on or with the kinds of goods and services produced.


Table 1: Mapping of ISCO-08 major groups to skill levels


ISCO-08 major groups Skill Level

1 - Managers 3 + 4

2 - Professionals 4

3 - Technicians and associate professionals 3

4 - Clerical support workers5 - Service and sales workers6 - Skilled agricultural and fishery workers7 - Craft and related trades workers8 - Plant and machine operators, and assemblers

2

9 - Elementary occupations 1

0 –Armed forces occupations 1, 2 + 4

Sub-major groups in Major group 2, Professionals


ISCO-08Code ISCO-08 Title

21 Science and engineering professionals

22 Health professionals

23 Teaching professionals

24 Business and administration professionals

25 Information and communications technology professionals

26 Legal, social and cultural professionals

22 Health professionals

221 Medical doctors 2211 Generalist medical practitioners 2212 Specialist medical practitioners 222 Nursing and midwifery professionals 2221 Nursing professionals 2222 Midwifery professionals223 Traditional and complementary medicine professionals

2230 Traditional and complementary medicine professionals224 Paramedical practitioners

2240 Paramedical practitioners225 Veterinarians

2250 Veterinarians226 Other health professionals

2261 Dentists2262 Pharmacists

2263 Environmental and occupational health and hygiene professionals 2264 Physiotherapists 2265 Dieticians and nutritionists 2266 Audiologists and speech therapists 2267 Optometrists and ophthalmic opticians

2269 Health professionals not elsewhere classified


32 Health associate professionals

321 Medical and pharmaceutical technicians3211 Medical imaging and therapeutic equipment technicians3212 Medical and pathology laboratory technicians 3213 Pharmaceutical technicians and assistants3214 Medical and dental prosthetic technicians

322 Nursing and midwifery associate professionals3221 Nursing associate professionals3222 Midwifery associate professionals

323 Traditional and complementary medicine associate professionals3230 Traditional and complementary medicine associate professionals

324 Veterinary technicians and assistants3240 Veterinary technicians and assistants

325 Other health associate professionals3251 Dental assistants and therapists3252 Medical records and health information technicians3253 Community health workers3254 Dispensing opticians3255 Physiotherapy technicians and assistants3256 Medical assistants3257 Environmental and occupational health inspectors and associates3258 Ambulance workers3259 Health associate professionals not elsewhere classified


Models for developing or adapting national classifications based on ISCO

• Adopt ISCO directly for national use– Much less than ideal– Some small countries with limited resources have no other choice– Collaborating with similar neighbouring countries may be an option

• Adapt ISCO to suit national circumstances– A popular choice– May start from scratch– One or more classifications may already be used in the country

• National occupation classification is not based on ISCO– A common situation for countries with own tradition or history of

occupation classification– May make adjustments to national classification to improve

comparability with ISCO or take advantages of new features in ISCO


Adapting ISCO to suit national circumstances: starting from scratch or from an existing national classification

• Decide at what level of ISCO-08 you will provide internationally comparable data (Eg 3 or 4 digits)

• Collapse ISCO categories that are too detailed for national requirements– Eg by making a minor group into a unit group.

• Create more detailed categories where needed to suit national labour market, user requirements:– For example by adapting the 4th level or creating a 5th level

• Adjust the classification code structure as needed while maintaining correspondence table with ISCO-08 and old classification

• Develop or update national index of occupation titles containing new and old national and ISCO codes (2, 3 or 4 code sets may be needed)

• Develop definitions of new or changed categories• Review and amend ISCO-08 definitions to ensure national relevance

– Eg lists of included occupations


Occupation – information needed for coding

• For accurate coding to any level of ISCO (and related national classifications) information is needed on:– Name or title of occupation– Main tasks or duties usually performed in the job

• The following may information may also be useful– The type of economic activity of the establishment (industry)– Whether or not the main aim of the activity is own consumption

(subsistence)

• Information about the level of skill or qualifications of an individual is not necessary and not useful


Occupation – single open-ended questions

• A single question such as:a) What is the main occupation of (the person) in this workplace?

b) What kind of work did (the person) do?

may provide adequate information from some but not all respondents

– But may yield responses such as ‘Manager’, ‘Consultant’, ‘Farm work’ that can not be coded accurately to any level of ISCO

• Interviewers need to be trained to probe when information provided is insufficient


Occupation – multiple open-ended questions

• Use of separate questions on job title and tasks performed generally assures that sufficient detail is provided

• Asking for two different types of information helps the respondent to respond fully, for example:

Title: Sales manager

Tasks: Selling used cars

Title: Customer service consultant

Tasks: Selling used cars


Questions recommended for testing and adaptation at national level

In the main job held last week what was your work or occupation?

Please give full job title and be specific, for example:

Fruit picker, Legal secretary, Restaurant manager, Secondary school teacher, Cattle

farmer, Registered nurse

…………………………………………………………………………………

………………………………………………………………………

What are your main tasks or duties in that job?Please give details, for example:

Picking and carrying oranges and peaches, Preparing legal documents, Managing the operations of a restaurant, Teaching mathematics, Managing a cattle farm, Caring for the sick and administering medications

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………


Coding occupational data in household surveys

• Responses to open ended questions have to be assigned to the appropriate category in an occupation classification

• Responses to questions on occupation (title and tasks), industry and name and address of workplace are relevant

• Coding should be done using and index of occupations– Mapping directly to the classification is error prone and inefficient

• Aim of the coding process is to determine and record correctly to which of the categories in the occupation classification the jobs belong

• at the most detailed level possible on the basis of the information provided in the responses


Sources of information for constructing and updating an occupation coding index

– Reviews of responses from recent survey operations and census tests

– Job vacancy reviews (newspapers, internet, employment services)

– Full-scale job monitoring exercises– ISCO index may be a good starting point in the absence of any

national index or a useful source to assess completeness of a national index

– Do neighbouring countries with similar languages have indexes that could be shared or adapted?

– Index needs to reflect language used in the national context in response to questions in statistical collections and administrative forms


At what level of the classification should responses be coded?

• It is sometimes decided to code to an aggregate level of ISCO (Eg 2 or 3-digit level of ISCO) – Perceived cost of coding in terms of errors and staff hours – Concern that responses may not be codable to detailed groups– In sample surveys the detailed results may not be publishable

BUT– Information is unnecessarily lost – limits options for tabulation, international reporting

Experience of statistical agencies has shown that – Costs of coding to a larger number of categories are small– Error rates do not significantly increase and may improve for

aggregate groups– Many responses support detailed coding, while some do not


Coding of vague and difficult responses

Some responses may be too vague and imprecise to allow the coder to determine to which category the job belongs– These responses should be coded to the level in the classification

structure supported by the information contained in them– should not be forced into any particular detailed category where only a

small proportion of the jobs would fall if the responses were adequate.– Residual groups (not elsewhere classified) should not be used for vague

responses– A common method of dealing with this type of response is to provide

entries in the coding index for commonly occurring vague responses– Such responses are assigned the code for the relevant higher category,

followed by trailing zeros. • responses can be allocated proportionally to the more detailed

categories in a transparent manner • or they can be released in publications labelled as : ‘Group name

not further defined’


Occupation title: SalesTasks performed: Selling

52 Sales workers

5200 Sales workers not further defined

521Street and market salespersons

5211 Stall and market salespersons

5212 Street food salespersons

522Shop salespersons

5221 Shopkeepers

5222 Shop supervisors

5223 Shop sales assistants

523Cashiers and ticket clerks

5230 Cashiers and ticket clerks

524Other sales workers

5241 Fashion and other models

5242 Sales demonstrators

5243 Door to door salespersons

5244 Contact centre salespersons

5245 Service station attendants

5246 Food service counter attendants

5249 Sales workers not elsewhere classified


Automatic and computer assisted coding

• Both approaches use computing power to speed up process of searching an index, identifying matching responses, following coding rules and recording the correct code

• In Computer assisted coding (CAC) the coder enters a small number of characters from key and qualifying words– Matching index entries are displayed and coder selects matching entry– Correct code is recorded by coder or the computer or a query is raised

• In automatic coding (AC) responses are key entered or captured electronically, then matched automatically by the computer– Match rates of up to 70% have been achieved– Remaining entries are coded using CAC– Requires a high degree of sophistication and a very well designed index

• Software solutions are available at low cost but cost of integration into larger processing systems may be high


Summary – challenges for achieving globally comparable occupational data

• Different countries use different classification systems, based (or not) on different versions of ISCO

• Within countries different classification systems may be used for different applications– ‘Big data’ may make this worse while making more information available

• Varying quality of occupational information collected on statistical and administrative forms

• Multiple approaches to coding occupational data (index and procedures)• Difficulty in achieving international consistency due to linguistic

differences• Technological solutions (CAC, AC, OCR) can improve consistency

– May lead to systematic error if badly implemented– Difficult for less developed countries to use

• Need for coordination and leadership from national statistical offices and international institutions


ingrid expert workshop new skills for new jobs: tools for harmonising the measurement of occupations...

Documents

design principles of

coding occupations

mapping of isco

major group occupations

health professionals

job skill level

submajor groups

underlying concepts