Occupational Requirements Survey Technical Note

                                          Technical Note

The Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS) provides job-related information about the physical 
demands; environmental conditions; education, training, and experience; as well as cognitive and 
mental requirements in the U.S. economy. 

Additional job requirement estimates are available at www.bls.gov/web/ors/ors-complete-dataset.xlsx 
and www.bls.gov/ors/data.htm. For information on estimation concepts and methods, see the Handbook 
of Methods at www.bls.gov/opub/hom/ors/home.htm and www.bls.gov/ors/questions-and-answers.htm. Some 
estimates in this release have been provided as ranges. Ranges represent estimates where the 
precise value cannot be published. More information is available in the range estimates factsheet 
at www.bls.gov/ors/factsheet/range-estimates.htm. 

Sample size: The ORS is a nationally representative establishment-based survey. Estimates are 
produced from a probability sample of 27,100 establishments. There were 10,700 private industry and 
2,200 state and local government responding establishments that provided approximately 50,600 
occupational observations. The 2025 estimates represent 148,672,800 civilian workers. The 2025 
estimates are the aggregate of two annual samples collected between August 2023 and July 2025 as 
part of the third wave of ORS. Estimates are preliminary until the entire third wave sample is 
collected and aggregated to produce final estimates. 

Standard errors: To assist users in ascertaining the reliability of ORS estimates, standard errors 
are made available with the release. Standard errors provide users a measure of the precision of an 
estimate to ensure that it is within an acceptable range for their intended purpose. Collected and 
imputed data are included in the standard error calculation. For further information on standard 
errors and how to use them, see www.bls.gov/ors/se.htm. 

Limitations: Estimates are subject to sampling error, which may cause the sampled results to differ 
from the true value of job requirements in all establishments, see the Handbook of Methods for more 
information. The ORS program advises against making comparisons with previously published ORS 
estimates. ORS estimates are not time series data and instead reflect job requirements for the 
published reference period.

Major terms: Below are selected major terms from the news release. For complete terms and 
definitions, see the collection manual at www.bls.gov/ors/information-for-survey-participants/pdf/
occupational-requirements-survey-collection-manual-third-wave.pdf. 

	* Critical job function is the main purpose and the primary pay factor for the job. It 
	consists of critical tasks that are integral to the job.
	* Critical tasks are the activities workers must perform to carry out their critical job 
	function.
	* Pause control considers if a worker has the flexibility to choose or control how and when 
	they can take short, unscheduled breaks.
	* Work schedule variability is present if the employer changes the work schedule, requiring 
	workers to report on different days or times, or work a different number of hours from week 
	to week.