The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is a free online database that contains hundreds of
job
Work or labor (or labour in British English) is intentional activity people perform to support the needs and wants of themselves, others, or a wider community. In the context of economics, work can be viewed as the human activity that contr ...
definitions to help students, job seekers, businesses and workforce development professionals to understand today's world of work in the United States. It was developed under the sponsorship of the
US Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemplo ...
/
Employment and Training Administration
The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is part of the U.S. Department of Labor. Its mission is to provide training, employment, labor market information, and income maintenance services. ETA administers federal government job training and ...
(USDOL/ETA) through a grant to the North Carolina Employment Security Commission (now part of the NC Commerce Department) during the 1990s. John L. Holland's vocational model, often referred to as the
Holland Codes
The Holland Codes or the Holland Occupational Themes (RIASEC) refers to a taxonomy of interests based on a theory of careers and vocational choice that was initially developed by American psychologist John L. Holland.
Dictionary of Occupational Titles
The ''Dictionary of Occupational Titles'' or D-O-T (DOT) refers to a publication produced by the United States Department of Labor which helped employers, government officials, and workforce development professionals to define over 13,000 differen ...
'' or the DOT. The DOT was first published in 1938 and "emerged in an
industrial economy
In economics, industrial organization is a field that builds on the theory of the firm by examining the structure of (and, therefore, the boundaries between) firms and markets. Industrial organization adds real-world complications to the perf ...
and emphasized
blue-collar
A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...
jobs. Updated periodically, the DOT provided useful occupational information for many years. But its usefulness waned as the economy shifted toward information and services and away from heavy industry."Replace with a database: O*NET replaces the Dictionary of Occupational Titles /ref> With the shift in the economy, plans developed to replace the book format of the DOT with an online database. A limited use, preliminary version was released in December 1997, followed by a public edition in December 1998. The O*NET thus, "supersedes the seventy-year-old Dictionary of Occupational Titles with current information that can be accessed online or through a variety of public and private sector career and labor market information systems." The decision to move from the DOT to O*NET, "remains controversial (e.g., Gibson, Harvey, & Harris, 2007; Harvey, 2009; Harvey & Hollander, 2002), even as we approach the 20-year anniversary of its inception (e.g., APDOT, 1992). Many applied psychologists have praised O*NET (e.g., Peterson, Mumford, Borman, Jeanneret, Fleishman, Levin, Campion, Mayfield, Morgeson, Pearlman, Gowing, Lancaster, Silver, & Dye, 2001)."
O*NET classifies jobs in job families (functional areas which include workers from entry level to advanced, and may include several sub-specialties). After the third major revision of O*NET realigned all O*NET occupations to conform to the newly mandated
Standard Occupational Classification
The Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System is a United States government system of classifying occupations. It is used by U.S. federal government agencies collecting occupational data, enabling comparison of occupations across data se ...
(SOC)), O*NET, with less than 1,000 listed occupational categories, compares to over 13,000 occupations in the last published DOT.
Overview
The O*NET system varies from the DOT in a number of ways. It is a digital database which offers a "flexible system, allowing users to reconfigure data to meet their needs" as opposed to the "fixed format" of the DOT; it reflects the employment needs of an
Information society
An information society is a society where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid inf ...
rather than an Industrial society; costs the government and users much less than a printed book would,
and is easier to update as new data is collected. The
US Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemplo ...
/
Employment and Training Administration
The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is part of the U.S. Department of Labor. Its mission is to provide training, employment, labor market information, and income maintenance services. ETA administers federal government job training and ...
(USDOL/ETA) describes the O*NET as: "a database of occupational requirements and worker attributes. It describes occupations in terms of the skills and knowledge required, how the work is performed, and typical work settings. It can be used by businesses, educators, job seekers, human resources professionals, and the publicly funded Workforce Investment System to help meet the talent needs of our competitive global economy. O*NET information helps support the creation of industry competency models."O*NET - beyond information - intelligence /ref>
For each job, O*NET provides the following information:
* Personal requirements: the skills and knowledge required to perform the work
* Personal characteristics: the abilities, interests, and values needed to perform the work
* Experience requirements: the training and level of licensing and experience needed for the work
* Job requirements: the work activities and context, including the physical, social, and organizational factors involved in the work
* Labor market: the occupational outlook and the pay scale for the work
US Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemplo ...
/
Employment and Training Administration
The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is part of the U.S. Department of Labor. Its mission is to provide training, employment, labor market information, and income maintenance services. ETA administers federal government job training and ...
US Department of Labor
The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of federal laws governing occupational safety and health, wage and hour standards, unemplo ...
/
Employment and Training Administration
The Employment and Training Administration (ETA) is part of the U.S. Department of Labor. Its mission is to provide training, employment, labor market information, and income maintenance services. ETA administers federal government job training and ...