Sit-Stand Option and Production Workers, All Other -- Occupational Requirements Survey and OOH

Small products assembler; electronics assembler; hospital products assembler; and all manner of sedentary assembly occupations do not exist in significant numbers at the light and sedentary levels of exertion and certainly not with  sit-stand option.  We use the ORS with the data sets from December 2016 and 2017 -- waiting with bated breath for the 2018 data sets.  Yes!  The 2017 data set is now in the ORS. 

1.  This occupational group continues to contain 1,526 different DOT codes.  The sedentary DOT codes represent 52 unskilled entries and 44 skilled and semi-skilled entries.  The light DOT codes represent 390 unskilled entries and 410 skilled and semi-skilled entries.  That's 96 sedentary and 800 light occupations at all skill levels.  You can run a report in Job Browser Pro for the occupational group; run an O*NET OnLine report for the occupational group and manually check 1,590 DOT codes (the O*NET has not caught up to the creation of 51-3099); or take my word for it.  No link. 

2.  In the 2016 data set, the ORS reported almost 83% of production workers, all other required medium exertion.  The 2017 data set reports that 73.9% of production workers, all other require medium exertion. 

Although light and sedentary occupations make up almost 59% of the DOT codes comprising production workers, all other, they make up perhaps 26.1% of the jobs.

 3.  Standing/walking is required 75% of the day at the 10th percentile.  Read percentile data as including an understood "or less."  Standing/walking is required 87.5% of the day at the 25th percentile.  Standing/walking is required 96.7% of the day at the median. 

Very few jobs in the production workers, all other, category will meet the typical six hours of standing/walking in an eight-hour day finding.  Look for this finding to disappear in ALJ decisions in the future and get replaced with a "capacity for light exertion as defined in the regulations."  

4.  Standing/walking is required 7.00 hours per day at the 25% percentile.  Standing/walking is required 7.25 hours per day at the median. 

The operative word in these data is required.  

5.  The maximum weight lifted/carried is 10 pounds at the 10th percentile for production workers, all other.  The maximum weight lifted/carried is 25 pounds at the 25th percentile.  The maximum weight lifted/carried is 50 pounds at the median. 

6.  Production occupations -- all 144 SOC summary (36) and line (108) codes, including supervisors and skilled workers -- permit sitting vs. standing/walking at will in 16.4% of jobs. 

The sit-stand option is not as ubiquitous as the vocational expert corps would have anyone believe.  

7.  Production workers, all other, represent 263,500 jobs in the national economy as of 2016 per the Occupational Outlook Handbook. 

Assuming that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is a reliable source for occupational data, the requirement to stand/walk the vast majority of the day eliminates the notion that a significant part of the occupational group of production workers, all other permits a sit-stand option.  The availability of that data for production occupations in 108 different detailed SOC codes and the absence of that data for production workers, all other, tells us that the data for the sit-stand option is not reliable.