Over 80 percent of jobs required workers to work at a task-driven pace in 2016

Workers need to use judgment, make decisions, and adapt to changes on the job. These include the pace at which work is performed, the extent of supervision, and the frequency of work interactions. The majority of jobs in 2016 (81.5 percent) required workers to work at a task-driven pace, compared with 18.5 percent of jobs where workers worked at a self-driven pace.

In 2016, 42.6 percent of jobs required workers to work at a moderate pace. This compared with 2.5 percent of jobs where workers worked at a slow pace and 38.7 percent of jobs where the pace was variable.

Ongoing interaction with regular contacts, or those people with whom a worker has an established working relationship, was required for 33.7 percent of jobs in 2016. Daily or less-frequent interaction with regular contacts was required for 4.9 percent of jobs. Ongoing interaction with other contacts, including the public and those with whom the worker has no working relationship, was required for 17.2 percent of jobs. Daily or less-frequent interaction with other contacts was required for 48.8 percent of jobs.

In 2016, 40.3 percent of jobs involved supervision that detailed instruction and quality review of completed assignments. Detailed instruction and frequent review were needed for 11.4 percent of jobs.

These data are from the Occupational Requirements Survey. See "Occupational Requirements in the United States — 2016" (HTML) (PDF) to learn more. For more information, refer to page 128 of the glossary.