Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Vocational Expert Claims 229,000 Bakery Worker, Conveyor Line

ALJ asks Susan Allison for a light occupation, occasional reaching and handling, no fingering.  The vocational expert comes up with bakery worker, conveyor line.  The DOT/SCO says:

524.687-022  BAKERY WORKER, CONVEYOR LINE
Industry:     (bakery products)Reasoning:          1
Strength:     LMathematics:       1
SVP:            2Language:           1
GOE:            06.04.28Data:                     6 - Not Significant
DLU:            86People:                 8 - Not Significant
Things:                 7 - Significant

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:
CL
BA
ST
KN
CO
CW
RE
HA
FI
FE
TA
HE
TS
NA
FA
DP
AC
CV
FV
N
N
N
N
N
N
O
O
N
N
N
N
N
O
N
N
O
O
N

How many of those jobs exist, asks the ALJ.  The vocational expert thinks everyone in the room is stupid and says, 229,000 jobs.  

I know that number.  I saw it a long time ago.  Where was it?  

A journey to the BLS OES Data website.  I know it wasn't this year or the past four years.  Look at 2014, no.  The HTML presentation of occupations stops in 2014.  Everything before that is in an XLSX spreadsheet.  So I open the spread sheets for OES data in 2013 and 2012.  The job numbers for food processing workers, all other, and production workers, all other don't match the 229,000 jobs.  

I look at 2011 and can't find either 51-3099 or 51-9199.  Then I remember, the 2010 SOC split 51-9199 into the two groups.  In the 2010 and 2011 OES reports, BLS combined 51-3099 and 51-9199 into a new number -- 51-9399.  There it is!  But the number isn't right for 2011 either.  Maybe 2010.  Bingo:

OCC_CODE     OCC_TITLE                                             TOT_EMP      
51-9399         Production Workers, All Other*         229,240

A spreadsheet with 820 lines and 20 columns of data is just too much.  But I would like to get the HTML page for Production Workers, All Other -- 51-9399.  

I resorted to the Internet Archive: Wayback Machine.   The current BLS OES address uses oes519199.htm.  I use the address but change that second 1 to a 3.  I search in the Wayback Machine for https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes519399.htm and look for something in 2011 since the data is published a year in arrears.  I find seven hits between June and December 2011.  They should all be the same and here is the first 3 inches:

* This occupation has the same title, but not necessarily the same content, as the 2010 SOC occupation
This OES occupation is a combination of data collected for the 2010 SOC occupations 51-3099 Food Processing Workers, All Other, 51-9199 Production Workers, All Other and the 2000 SOC occupation 51-9199 Production Workers, All Other.

National estimates for this occupation
Industry profile for this occupation
Geographic profile for this occupation

National estimates for this occupation: Top

Employment estimate and mean wage estimates for this occupation:
Employment (1)Employment
RSE (3)
Mean hourly
wage
Mean annual
wage (2)
Wage RSE (3)
229,2401.9 %$14.89$30,9800.6 %

Gotcha, Susan.  Not only did you use the entire OES group, you used the data that is eight years old.  Not reliable.  That is our burden of proof -- to show that the testimony of the vocational expert is not reliable.  

A note about Occu Collect:  the snapshot of the report presented at the top of this blog is free for registering.  For those attending the NOSSCR conference in San Francisco, I will have a code for one free month trial with full access to all reports.  See you in three weeks.  

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