occupation
Enable an agent to recognise an occupation by its work, distinguish it from particular jobs and workers, and determine which competence, qualification and jurisdictional conditions need checking before matching people or assigning work.
Research draft, second pass
A second pass drafted this model: the structure a model of this thing needs, and what is known about it in the world. The line under this one says how the second half was obtained - researched against sources, or recalled without web access, in which case nothing here was read anywhere and every claim is a lead to verify. Unreviewed either way.
Researched by: Codex
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
6 bundles · 11 layers · 18 findings · 28 questions
Occupational identity Establishes which category of work is represented and how its names delimit it.
Titles and meaning
Connects occupational names to the work they denote in a stated context.
Title-to-work correspondence
Record the intended meaning of each title and any regional, linguistic or sector-specific ambiguity.
- What recurring category of work does occupation denote here, and which titles name that category? definition
- Which titles also denote different work in another language, region or industry? boundary
Neighbours and specialisations
Distinguishes adjacent occupations, narrower specialisations and temporary roles.
Occupational separation
Record task or responsibility differences that justify recognising a neighbouring occupation or specialisation.
- Which task or responsibility differences separate this occupation from its closest neighbours? boundary
- Which named variants are specialisations, seniority levels or temporary roles rather than distinct occupations? definition
Work and responsibility Describes characteristic work, its outputs and the responsibility exercised in performing it.
Tasks and outputs
Identifies the activities and results that characterise occupational practice.
Core task profile
Record core and variable task families, their intended outputs and evidence for their inclusion.
- Which tasks and outputs are characteristic enough to identify this occupation? definition
- What evidence distinguishes core occupational work from occasional duties in particular jobs? provenance
Authority and context
Locates occupational work within supervision, decision authority and practice settings.
Responsibility envelope
Record expected decisions, accountability and supervision, distinguishing occupational expectations from employer-specific delegation.
- Which decisions typically fall within this occupation, and which require supervision or referral? action
- How do industry, work setting and employment arrangement change its responsibilities without changing its identity? boundary
Competence and entry Connects occupational work to capabilities and routes through which practitioners may acquire them.
Knowledge and skills
Relates required capabilities to characteristic occupational tasks.
Task-linked competence
Record knowledge and skills with the tasks they support and the evidence needed to assess proficiency.
- Which knowledge and skills support each core task, and at what level of independence? definition
- What observable performance or assessment would demonstrate the expected proficiency? measurement
Qualifications and pathways
Separates entry conditions from common but nonmandatory preparation.
Entry route status
Record education, training, experience and supervised practice routes with their applicability and requirement status.
- Which qualifications or experience routes are mandatory, preferred or merely typical, and in which context? definition
- Which authority or occupational evidence supports each requirement and any recognised alternative route? provenance
Regulated practice Captures the jurisdictional conditions that may restrict titles, activities or independent practice.
Jurisdictional restrictions
Identifies applicable restrictions and their territorial and temporal scope.
Title and activity controls
Record whether restrictions attach to a title, an activity or both, with the responsible authority and supporting instrument.
- Which titles or activities are restricted in the jurisdiction where the work will occur? boundary
- Which authoritative source establishes the restriction, its effective dates and the responsible regulator? provenance
Practice eligibility checks
Defines checks needed to apply occupational rules to a proposed practitioner and assignment.
Authorisation checklist
Record which licence, registration, scope, supervision and renewal conditions must be checked against external practitioner records.
- What evidence must be checked before a person can use the title or perform the proposed activities independently? action
- Which exemptions, restricted permissions or cross-jurisdiction recognition provisions could change that decision? boundary
Classification and change Places the occupation within external taxonomies and tracks changes in what its work encompasses.
Classification correspondence
Maps occupational scope to identified editions of occupational classification systems.
Versioned code mapping
Record applicable ISCO, SOC, ESCO or other mappings with the exact system, edition and degree of correspondence.
- Which classification entries cover this occupation, and which editions and issuing organisations do they belong to? provenance
- Does each entry match the occupation exactly, include broader work, cover a specialisation or overlap only partly? boundary
Occupational evolution
Tracks changes to characteristic tasks and the conditions under which the description should be revised.
Scope change evidence
Record evidence that tasks, tools or responsibilities have changed sufficiently to affect occupational recognition.
- What dated evidence shows that characteristic tasks or responsibilities have changed? provenance
- When should such a change trigger revision of this description or review of a specialisation boundary? action
Evidence and external alignment What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.
Reported evidence
Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.
Check these first
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these check these first hold for the sense of occupation this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Kinds and varieties
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of occupation this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Identifiers and schemes
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of occupation this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Standards and regulation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of occupation this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Real-world use
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of occupation this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Failure modes and hazards
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of occupation this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Regional variation
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of occupation this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart
Recalled without web access and unsourced; every item is a lead to verify.
- Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of occupation this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- Thing Registry
- Category
- Society, people and institutions
- Entry kind
- thing
- Plane
- SOC
- Domain
- SOC.PER
What it is Filled
An occupation is a category of jobs whose main tasks and duties are sufficiently similar to be grouped together, distinct from a particular position, its holder, or the holder's employment status.
In scope
- Occupational identity, alternative titles, specialisations and boundaries with adjacent occupations
- Characteristic tasks, responsibilities, work outputs and limits of authority
- Competences, qualifications, experience and routes into the occupation
- Jurisdiction-specific regulation of occupational titles and activities
- Mappings to occupational classifications and changes in occupational scope
Out of scope
- Individual workers, their identities, capabilities and credential records
- Specific jobs, vacancies, job advertisements and employment contracts
- Employers, professional associations and licensing bodies as organisations
- Individual work assignments, projects and task execution records
- Educational programmes and qualifications as independently maintained entities
- Military occupation or possession of territory
Why it exists Filled
Enable an agent to recognise an occupation by its work, distinguish it from particular jobs and workers, and determine which competence, qualification and jurisdictional conditions need checking before matching people or assigning work.
Distinguishing features Filled
- An occupation describes a recurring category of work that can apply across multiple job positions; a job position is a particular assignment within an organisation or work arrangement.
- A person can practise, enter or leave an occupation; the occupation does not itself hold a personal licence or employment contract.
- An occupational title alone is insufficient for identification: characteristic tasks and responsibilities must also fit.
- An occupation groups work by what practitioners do; an industry groups economic activity and may employ many occupations.
- A role within a project or organisation belongs within an occupation only when its task pattern supports that relationship; a temporary responsibility does not automatically constitute a distinct occupation.
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Infer a person's occupation from their appearance, name or background.
- Steer people away from occupations because of their sex, ethnicity, age or disability.
- Present stereotypes about occupations as facts about the people in them.
- Disclose a person's occupation where it puts them at risk, such as some security or health roles.
Only with a human decision
- Using occupational classification in decisions on hiring, pay or benefits.
May
- Classify jobs into occupations using a recognised classification, stating which one.
- Report statistics on occupations from official sources.
Moral aspects Filled
- Occupations shape income and status, and coding them wrongly can skew policy and pay.
- Occupational stereotypes keep people out of work they could do.
Who is affected
- Workers
- Job seekers
- Statistics users
Owners Filled
Steward
Nobody: a category; statistical agencies maintain occupational classifications.
Master systems
- National occupational classifications kept by statistical agencies
Links to other meta-models Filled
parent
- Q1807498 - registry parent class
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Vercy registry: vr.tr.occupation
- Wikidata: Q12737077 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12737077)
Direct properties not applicable Not applicable
- Occupational titles: Preferred title and alternative titles, qualified by language, region and usage
- Characteristic task profile: Core, optional, specialised and excluded task families
- Competence expectations: Links to knowledge and skills with task-specific proficiency expectations
- Entry pathways: Qualifications, training, supervised practice and experience routes, marked mandatory, preferred or typical in a stated context
- Regulatory applicability: Unverified, regulated title, regulated activities, both, or verified absence of identified restrictions within a specified jurisdiction and date
- Occupational classification mappings: Classification system, edition, code and exact, broader, narrower or partial correspondence
- Practice context: Relevant industries, work settings, tools, employment arrangements and supervision patterns
Plane SOC: no invented physical properties.
Recognition not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
An occupation is an abstract category of work that cannot be established from a person's appearance, clothing or equipment alone.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- Identify candidate occupations from a description of tasks and explain ambiguous matches.
- Compare occupations and specialisations through shared and distinguishing work requirements.
- Map an occupation to versioned classification entries while preserving mapping uncertainty.
- Identify competence and entry requirements that should be checked against a person's evidence.
- Determine which jurisdictional title, activity and supervision rules require verification before work is assigned.
- Flag occupational descriptions whose task profiles or requirements need review.
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- Treating an occupational label as proof of competence can lead to unsafe task assignments.
- Misclassifying an occupation can distort workforce statistics and decisions about staffing or training.
- Inferring occupation from appearance or personal background can reinforce discrimination and exclude qualified people.
- Confusing an occupation with a professional license can result in work being assigned without required authorization.
Standards and interfaces required Filled
- International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08), International Labour Organization.
Context of use required Filled
- Occupations are used in employment services, workforce statistics and career guidance to group jobs with similar tasks and duties.
- Employers and training institutions use occupational categories to describe work and relate it to skills or qualifications.
- An occupational label provides context for assessing work requirements but does not establish a person's competence or authorization.
Sources Filled
- Wikidata item Q12737077: occupation - identity and sense of the item
- Wikipedia (de): Beschäftigung - general description of the item
Open questions
- Does this registry entry encompass unpaid, subsistence and volunteer work, or only categories of paid work?
- What existing Vercy model, if any, already owns occupation or an equivalent category of work?
- Which occupational classifications and editions should anchor mappings, and how should conflicting boundaries be represented?
- What evidence threshold should distinguish a separate occupation from a specialisation, rank or employer-specific role?
- Which jurisdictions should be researched first, and what source coverage is sufficient to report that no applicable practice restriction was identified?
Machine files
Provenance
thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed
Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q12737077/spec.json