The Requirements of Jobs: Evidence from a Nationally Representative Survey

The Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS) is a new survey at the Bureau of Labor Statistics which collects data on the educational, cognitive, and physical requirements of jobs, as well as the environmental conditions in which the work is performed. Using pre-production data, we provide estimates of a subset of elements by broad industry and occupation and examine the relationship between the cognitive elements and measures of education and training. We exploit the overlap between ORS and the National Compensation Survey to estimate models of the returns to different occupational requirements. Finally, we examine the relationship between occupational requirements and occupational safety measures and outline potential research uses of the Occupational Requirements Survey.