TITLE 20
[Code
of Federal Regulations]
[Title 20, Volume 2, Parts 400 to 499]
[Revised as of April 1, 1999]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE:
20CFR404.1568]
[Page
375-376]
TITLE 20--EMPLOYEES' BENEFITS
ADMINISTRATION
PART
404--FEDERAL OLD-AGE, SURVIVORS AND DISABILITY INSURANCE (1950-)--Table of
Contents
Subpart P--Determining Disability and Blindness
Sec.
404.1568 Skill requirements.
In order to evaluate your skills and to help determine the existence in
the national economy of work you are able to do, occupations are classified as
unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled. In classifying these occupations, we use
materials published by the Department of Labor. When we make disability
determinations under this subpart, we use the following definitions:
(a) Unskilled work. Unskilled work is work
which needs little or no judgment to do simple duties that can be learned on the
job in a short period of time. The job may or may not require considerable
strength. For example, we consider jobs unskilled if the primary work duties are
handling, feeding and offbearing (that is, placing or removing materials from
machines which are automatic or operated by others), or machine tending, and a
person can usually learn to do the job in 30 days, and little specific
vocational preparation and judgment are needed. A person does not gain work
skills by doing unskilled jobs.
(b) Semi-skilled work. Semi-skilled work is
work which needs some
skills but does not require doing the more
complex
work duties. Semi-skilled jobs may require alertness and close attention to
watching machine processes; or inspecting, testing or otherwise looking for
irregularities; or tending or guarding equipment, property, materials, or
persons against loss, damage or injury; or other types of activities which are
similarly less complex than skilled work, but more complex than unskilled work.
A job may be classified as semi-skilled where coordination and dexterity are
necessary, as when hands or feet must be moved quickly to do repetitive tasks.
(c) Skilled work. Skilled work requires
qualifications in which a person uses judgment to determine the machine and
manual operations to be performed in order to obtain the proper form, quality,
or quantity of material to be produced. Skilled work may require laying out
work, estimating quality, determining the suitability and needed quantities of
materials, making precise measurements, reading blueprints or other
specifications, or making necessary computations or mechanical adjustments to
control or regulate the work. Other skilled jobs may require dealing with
people, facts, or figures or abstract ideas at a high level of complexity.
(d) Skills that can be used in other work
(transferability)--(1) What we mean by transferable skills. We consider you to
have skills that can be used in other jobs, when the skilled or semi-skilled
work activities you did in past work can be used to meet the requirements of
skilled or semi-skilled work activities of other jobs or kinds of work. This
depends largely on the similarity of occupationally significant work activities
among different jobs.
(2) How we determine skills that can be
transferred to other jobs.
Transferability is most probable and meaningful among jobs in which--
(i) The same or a lesser degree of skill is
required;
(ii) The same or similar
tools and machines are used; and
(iii) The same or similar
raw materials, products, processes, or services are involved.
(3) Degrees of transferability. There are
degrees of transferability of skills ranging from very close similarities to
remote and incidental similarities among jobs. A complete similarity of all
three factors is not necessary for transferability. However, when skills are so
specialized or have been acquired in such an isolated vocational setting (like
many jobs in mining, agriculture, or fishing) that they are not readily usable
in other industries, jobs, and work settings, we consider that they are not
transferable.
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