Selected Characteristics of Occupations

Selected Characteristics Of Occupations

The Selected Characteristics of Occupations (SCO) is a companion volume to the U.S. Department of Labor's Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised Fourth Edition, published in 1991. These volumes were intended to provide a detailed representation of thousands of individual occupations in the United States, for the purpose of occupational information, occupational exploration, and job placement.

The Social Security Administration was particularly interested in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and the SCO for the purpose of establishing the existence of jobs that a claimant for disability benefits could otherwise perform despite his or her mental and/or physical impairments during disability adjudication within the Social Security Administration.

The Dictionary of Occupational Titles was insufficient for disability adjudication at the Social Security Administration because it did not include enough detail about the physical and environmental demands of the jobs listed therein. Accordingly, the Social Security Administration requested that the Department of Labor produce a companion volume to the DOT, which would publish data collected as part of the DOT research, but not previously available. This document is known as the "SCO" or Selected Characteristics of Occupations Defined in the Revised Dictionary of Occupational Titles.