Common DOT Codes -- Sedentary Unskilled -- Surveillance-System Monitor

Sedentary work that does not exceed six hours of sitting in an eight-hour day represents a small window.  The DOT and the regulations define sedentary work as involving standing or walking not more than occasionally, 2.3 hours.  Sedentary work as depicted by a residual functional capacity question with a lower limit of 5.7 hours an upper limit of 6.0 hours constitutes a slender reed.  

Understanding sedentary work rests on the difference between and and or.  Light work exists (1) when it requires walking or standing to a significant degree; OR (2) when it requires sitting most of the time but entails pushing and/or pulling of arm or leg controls; AND/OR (3) when the job requires working at a production rate pace entailing the constant pushing and/or pulling of materials even though the weight of those materials is negligible.  

Sedentary work exists when the work (1) when it does not require walking or standing to a significant degree; AND (2) when it requires sitting most of the time and does not involve pushing and/or pulling of arm or leg controls; AND (3) when the job requires working at a production rate pace but does not entail the constant pushing and/or pulling of materials even though the weight of those materials is negligible.  Transgressing the standing/walking, lifting/carrying, pushing/pulling with the arms or legs, or production rate pace strips away any hope for that sedentary label.  

The cadre of vocational experts rely on 16 different DOT codes in the sedentary range.  Ignoring obsolescence and industry, the question is whether the occupations are unskilled, sedentary, and do not exceed 6.0 hours of sitting in a full-time workday.  

14.  Surveillance-System Monitor

Surveillance-system monitor belongs to three occupational groups:  Protective Service Workers, All Other (SOC 33-9099 under the 2010 SOC) (SOC 33-9098 under the 2018 SOC); School Bus Monitors (SOC 33-9094); and Gaming Surveillance Officers and Gaming Investigators (SOC 33-9031).  We need to address each SOC group separately.  

    a. Gambling Surveillance Officers

O*NET OnLine version 26.1 does not report data for protective service workers or school bus monitors.  We can start with gambling surveillance officers, an occupational group of about 8,500 jobs.  Most of the jobs require skills:

On-the-Job Training
Duration	Value
None or short demonstration	0%
Anything beyond short demonstration, up to and including 1 month	16.81%

Related Work Experience
Duration	Value
None	56.87%
Up to and including 1 month	0%

At most, 17% of the gambling surveillance officers represent unskilled work, about 1,445 jobs.  

Gambling surveillance officers do not stand or walk in most jobs, as in never.  

Exertional	%	Response
Spend Time Standing — How much does this job require standing?	12	Continually or almost continually
	2	More than half the time
	5	About half the time
	20	Less than half the time
	62	Never

	%
Spend Time Walking and Running — How much does this job require walking and running?	12	Continually or almost continually
	2	More than half the time
	5	About half the time
	28	Less than half the time
	54	Never

Treating skill and standing/walking as independent variables, very few gambling surveillance officers will engage in sedentary exertion with sitting less than or equal to six hours per day.  

The ORS supports this conclusion.  Gambling surveillance officers sit 7.2 hours per day at the 25th percentile and 5.0 hours per day at the 10th percentile.  The latter measure does not satisfy the need for 67% of the workday sitting to meet the definition of sedentary work.  Choice of sitting or standing is allowed in 55.4% of jobs.  The 2020 Collections Manual describes the choice:

This element captures jobs that have the ability to choose or control how and when they respond to external factors. When collecting for this element, consult the job’s documented task list to determine whether any of the critical tasks assigned would prevent the ability to sit/stand at will. 

The ORS instructs:

The ability to alternate between Sitting/Standing at Will is present when the following conditions exist:
• Workers typically have the flexibility to choose between sitting and standing throughout the day and
• There is no assigned time during the day to sit or stand and
• No external factors determine whether an employee must sit or stand.

A worker that has flexibility to choose when to engage in the activities has a "choice of sitting or standing" during the workday.  The presence of choice or at will sitting/standing in the ORS data does not mean that the person can assume any posture they choose.  The presence of choice or at will sitting/standing allow the worker to divide up the day as they choose but does not alter the amount of sitting or standing required to perform the job.  

The ORS also codes sitting where:

Workers may choose between sitting and standing for a given task. For example, office workers can choose a standing desk.

A standing desk may represent an accommodation and therefore irrelevant for Social Security purposes.  SSR 00-1c.  The ORS instructs employers to assess the performance of critical tasks without accommodation, how most workers perform the job.  The example of a standing desk would apply if workers typically have a standing desk at the workstation without asking for one.  

The ORS excludes "incidental tasks" from the assessment of work requirements.  The fourth example provided by the ORS to code choice or at will describes an office clerk that can choose when to file and typically stands while filing invoices.  The ORS instructs employers to code that occupation as "At Will is Yes" because the organization of the worker's day is "Worker's Choice."  

The ORS does not document the presence of unskilled work for gambling surveillance officers.  The ORS does not support the presence of surveillance-system monitor jobs in the gambling surveillance officers group as both unskilled and sitting not more than 6.0 hours per day.  Using the O*NET and ORS together requires the recognition that the O*NET is the result of incumbent surveys and the ORS is the result of employer (human resources) surveys.  

    b. Retail Loss Prevention Specialists

A subset, or detailed O*NET occupation, from protective service workers, all other is the classification of retail loss prevention specialists (O*NET 33-9099.02).  Neither the OOH nor the OEWS provides job numbers for detailed O*NET occupations.  The number of retail loss prevention specialists is less than the number of protective service workers.  

On-the-Job Training
Duration	Value
None or short demonstration	2.57%
Anything beyond short demonstration, up to and including 1 month	19.9%

Related Work Experience
Duration	Value
None	49.49%
Up to and including 1 month	3.97%

The training time is key in this group.  About 22.5% of jobs are unskilled, at most.  The O*NET does not report a large percentage of jobs in this classification as sitting enough to qualify as sedentary.  

Exertional	%	Response
Spend Time Sitting — How much does this job require sitting?	13	Continually or almost continually
	21	More than half the time
	30	About half the time
	33	Less than half the time
	3	Never

Spend Time Standing — How much does this job require standing?	4	Continually or almost continually
	13	More than half the time
	46	About half the time
	28	Less than half the time
	10	Never

Spend Time Walking and Running — How much does this job require walking and running?	1	Continually or almost continually
	17	More than half the time
	20	About half the time
	62	Less than half the time
	0	Never

A final point about the O*NET data -- the DOT crosswalk does not list surveillance-system monitor.  The only occupation in the group is internal security manager (DOT 376.137-010).  The OEWS industry breakdown states that 870 school bus monitors and protective service workers, all other work in the retail trade industries.  The employment projections states that NAICS group 4445R0 lists 1,100 jobs.  Whichever source we use, the number of surveillance-system monitor jobs is very small.  

    c.  Protective Service Workers, All Other

The O*NET does not address occupational groups with a terminal digit of "9" except those detailed groups following the decimal point by at least one non-zero digit.  The ORS does address protective service workers (SOC 33-9099).  Neither the ORS nor the O*NET have caught up to the 2018 SOC change of classification to SOC 33-9098 or the carving out of school bus monitors at SOC 33-9094.  

The OOH reports SOC 33-9098 as employing 141,600 workers. The OEWS reports 144,310 workers in SOC 33-9098.  The economy employs around 143,000 school bus monitors and protective service workers, all other.   The ORS reports that 47% of jobs have classification as unskilled.  The average weight lifted is 15 pounds.  The 75th percentile lifts 25 pounds.  The ORS classifies 13.6% of jobs as sedentary.  School bus monitors and protective service workers, all others sit 80% of the day at the 75th percentile and 95% of the day at the 90th percentile.  School bus monitors and protective service workers, all others have a choice of sitting or standing in 25.5% of jobs.  

We encounter the same problem with choice of sitting or standing, whether that choice involves changing tasks or performing the same task at the same work station.  A vocational expert would need to specify based on reliable data how many school bus monitors and protective service workers, all others engage in sedentary work and have the choice of sitting or standing.  

Treating the data points as independent variables, there is some support for the presence of about 9,000 sedentary unskilled jobs.  There is no support for those jobs sitting not more than 6.0 hours per day.   

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Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, Common DOT Codes -- Sedentary Unskilled -- Surveillance-System Monitor, California Social Security Attorney (January 6, 2022)  https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com