Touch-Up Screener, Printed Circuit Board Assembly -- An Illustration

Touch-up screener, printed circuit board assembly is a fairly common sedentary unskilled occupation identified by vocational witnesses.  Touch-up screener requires frequent reaching, handling, and fingering; constant near acuity; and average clerical perception, finger dexterity, and manual dexterity.  Within those parameters, the DOT supports the existence of that occupation.  The question is how many.  Here are the last 10 cases in Google Scholar identifying touch-up screener and the numbers of job, if stated:

Amador v. Kijakazi	48,000
Black v. Kijakazi	8,000 to 10,000
Cindy LS v. COSS	9,000
Williams v. Kijakazi	3,000
Mitchell v. COSS	unstated
Davis v. COSS	32,700
Christopher H. v. Kijakazi	unstated
Sherri S. v. Kijakazi	unstated
Kyle S. v. COSS	unstated
Fields v. COSS	17,000

The first thing we notice is that the range runs from 3,000 to 48,000 jobs.  There is no consistency.  One, some, most, or all the VW are pulling the answers out of a hat.  

For job numbers, we start with Job Browser Pro.  JBP estimates 1,074 touch-up screener jobs in the nation.  The best estimate from a VW is almost three times the JBP estimate.  Returning to the DOT, we examine the industry designation, electronic components.  The DOT defines that industry:

ELECTRONIC COMPONENTS AND ACCESSORIES INDUSTRY: This designation includes occupations concerned with manufacturing, assembling, and repairing electronic components. Electronic components are parts of electronic equipment that affect the current characteristics within its circuit. Included as electronic components are resistors, capacitors, coils, chokes, inductors, printed circuit boards, semiconductors, tubes, transistors, diodes, television antennas, headphones, piezoelectric crystals and crystal devices, computer logic modules filters, flipflops, gates, inverters, voltage dividers, delay lines, and wave guides. Occupations concerned with the manufacture of electrical machinery, equipment, and appliances or wire telephone or telegraph equipment are included in the ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT INDUSTRY (elec. equip.) and occupations concerned with the manufacture of radio and tv receiving and broadcasting equipment and accessories are included in the RADIO, TELEVISION, AND COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT INDUSTRY (comm. equip.). Occupations concerned with manufacturing blank and prerecorded magnetic tapes and phonograph records are included in the RECORDING INDUSTRY (recording).

Having established the integral part of the DOT presentation, we look to the industries used by JBP:

333300	Commercial and Service Industry Machinery Manufacturing
334100	Computer and Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing
334300	Audio and Video Equipment Manufacturing
334400	Semiconductor and Other Electronic Component Manufacturing
334500	Navigational, Measuring, Electromedical, and Control Instruments Manufacturing
335200	Household Appliance Manufacturing
335300	Electrical Equipment Manufacturing
336400	Aerospace Product and Parts Manufacturing

Without diving too deep into the weeds, those industry selections sound in a plausible range.  Within those industries, JBP estimates a total of 53,402 jobs spread out between 20 and 79 DOT codes at each occupation-industry intersection.  JBP arrives at 1,074 jobs for touch-up screener.  

Comparing JBP's occupation (inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers (SOC 51-9061)) to those same industry groups, the OEWS estimates 62,930 jobs and the EP estimates 62,400 jobs.  That is a 15% unexplained departure from JPB to BLS data.  It is not in our favor so we let it go.  

This is where we cross-examine the VW:

    1. Do you agree that touch-up screeners belong to the occupational group of inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers (SOC 51-9061)?

    2. Do you agree that inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers contains 782 different DOT codes at various exertion and skill levels?

    3. Do you agree that inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers represents between 551,000 (OEWS) and 558,000 (OOH/EP) jobs considering all 782 DOT codes?

    4. Did you consider the DOT designation of electronic components and accessories in estimating job numbers?

    5. What industries reported in County Business Patterns did you classify as employing touch-up screeners?

    6. State the NAICS codes for those industries?

    7. How many other testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers DOT codes co-exist the touch-up screeners in those industries that you just listed?

    8. What percentage of jobs at those occupation-industry intersections are unskilled?

    9. What percentage of jobs at those occupation-industry intersections are sedentary?

    10.  What percentage of jobs at those occupation-industry intersections are both sedentary and unskilled?

These 10 questions illustrate the granular nature of the question:

    What is your reliable well-accepted methodology for estimating job numbers?

Inside baseball statistics:  

    

    1. The ORS reports that 10.4% of testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers engage in sedentary exertion.  

    2. The ORS reports that 15.0% of testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers engage in unskilled work.

A VW would have to assume that all 10.4% of sedentary jobs are unskilled and that all of them work as touch-up screeners with no other occupations at the occupation-industry intersections to estimate anything close to 50,000 jobs for touch-up screeners.  More likely that 10% of the jobs at those occupation-industry intersections are sedentary and 15% of those are unskilled.  That is true if exertion and skill have no correlation.  To answer the question posed, most or all the VW are pulling the answers out of a hat.  

___________________________

Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, Touch-Up Screener, Printed Circuit Board Assembly -- An Illustration, California Social Security Attorney (August 8, 2022) https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com

The author has been AV-rated since 2000 and listed in Super Lawyers since 2009. 

  

Common DOT Codes -- Sedentary Unskilled -- Lens Block Gauger; Table Worker; Touch-Up Screener

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.  

9.  Lens Block Gauger 

10.  Table Worker

11.  Touch-Up Screener

Lens block gauger, table worker, and touch-up screener belongs to the occupational group Inspectors, Testers, Sorters, Samplers, and Weighers (SOC 51-9061) (inspectors).  Inspectors represent about 550,000 jobs in the national economy.  Inspectors contains 782 DOT codes, 14 sedentary and unskilled.  This group contains 135 light unskilled DOT codes.  The significant segment of the unskilled occupational base for sedentary and light work are right here.    

The O*NET Resource Center describes the three component of SVP: on-the-job training, related work experience, and required level of education separately.  

On-the-Job Training
Duration	Value
None or short demonstration	0%
Anything beyond short demonstration, up to and including 1 month	22.61%

Related Work Experience
Duration	Value
None	43.9%
Up to and including 1 month	0%

Required Level of Education
Education Level	Value
Less than a High School Diploma	0%
High School Diploma or the equivalent	69.81%

Using the O*NET Resource Center, incumbent data suggests that 23% of the jobs are unskilled.

The ORS data corresponds with the OTJ information from the O*NET Resource Center, about 18% of inspector jobs represent unskilled work.  The OccuCollect calculator uses the Occupational Outlook Handbook numbers, about 100,980 unskilled inspector jobs at all exertion levels.  

The next step in estimating the number of unskilled sedentary inspector jobs is to tease that conclusion from the data.  We start again with the O*NET OnLine:

Exertional	%	Response
Spend Time Sitting — How much does this job require sitting?	0	Continually or almost continually
	14	More than half the time
	25	About half the time
	44	Less than half the time
	17	Never

Spend Time Standing — How much does this job require standing?	41	Continually or almost continually
	7	More than half the time
	44	About half the time
	8	Less than half the time
	0	Never

Spend Time Walking and Running — How much does this job require walking and running?	35	Continually or almost continually
	18	More than half the time
	12	About half the time
	35	Less than half the time
	1	Never

The O*NET suggests that there are no sedentary inspector jobs in the national economy.  We check that conclusion against the ORS:

Sitting is Required
% Of Day	Percentile
<= 39.2%	Mean
<= -%	10th
<= 15%	25th
<= 25%	50th
<= 75%	75th
<= 90%	90th

Strength
Strength Type	Value
Sedentary	10.4%
Light Work	48.6%
Medium Work	30%

The sitting alone would allow an inference of 25% or more sedentary inspector jobs.  The specific statement reduces that percentage to 10%.  This means that there are 15% or more of inspector jobs that are sit down and light or greater in exertion.  

Treating skill and exertion as independent variables, about 10,100 inspector jobs could qualify as unskilled sedentary work in 14 different DOT codes.  The jobs most likely to qualify as sedentary require sitting 90% of the workday.  It is unlikely that any of these jobs permit sitting not more than six hours in an eight-hour day based on that measure.  

The ORS reports that inspectors have a choice of sitting or standing during the workday in 36% of jobs.  The ORS reports that 55% of inspectors have the ability to pause work.    Over 96% of inspectors work at either a fast pace or a varying work pace.  Whether any of these occupations would represent a sedentary work environment with a sit-stand option as opposed to sitting down during light and medium work would require a formal job analysis of a statistically relevant sample of those jobs.  

Without that statistical analysis, the best informed inference would treat the presence of sedentary and the choice of sitting or standing as independent variables.  That would put an estimate of around 4,000 jobs in 14 DOT codes.  There is no basis for dividing the choice of when to perform duties that require standing/walking from a true unaccommodated choice of sitting or standing at the workstation.  Estimating the number of jobs with a workstation sit-stand option is a probably pulled out of a hat.  

___________________________

Suggested Citation:

Lawrence Rohlfing, Common DOT Codes -- Sedentary Unskilled -- Lens Block Gauger; Table Worker; Touch-Up Screener, California Social Security Attorney (December 31, 2021)  https://californiasocialsecurityattorney.blogspot.com