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.  

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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.