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| What is an occupational classification? |
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An occupational classification is a tool for organising all jobs in an establishment, an industry or a country into a clearly defined set of groups according to the tasks and duties undertaken in the job. It normally consists of two components:
the classification system itself, which gives the guidelines on how jobs are to be classified into the most detailed groups of the classification and how these detailed groups are to be further aggregated into broader groups. It includes the occupational titles and codes, and represents a value set for the variable >occupation=, a variable which describes the different tasks and duties of jobs.
- a descriptive component, which usually consists of descriptions of the tasks and duties as well as other aspects of the jobs which belong to each of the defined groups, including goods and services produced, skill level and specialization, occupations included and excluded, entry restrictions, etc. These descriptions can be said to constitute a dictionary of occupations.
An occupational classification can be compared to a system of maps for a country, where the top level of aggregation corresponds to a small scale road map for the main motorways and highways; the next level corresponds to a set of larger scale maps for, say, each of the main regions, also showing provincial and local roads; and so on. At the most detailed level are the detailed technical maps used by municipal engineers to plan sidewalks, traffic lights, road extensions, etc. Such detailed technical maps can be compared to the job descriptions which are used by enterprises for personnel management and wage systems which in most countries are not the concern of national authorities, except for the management of public sector employees.
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