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Half of civilian workers required over 1 year of preparation time to perform their jobs in 2022

February 14, 2023

In 2022, 53.7 percent of civilian workers required specific vocational preparation time over 1 year. This preparation comes in the form of formal education, credentials, prior work experience, and on-the-job training needed to perform the job.

Percentage of workers with over 1 year of specific vocational preparation time by occupational group, 2022
Occupational group Percent

Business and financial operations

93.3%

Educational instruction and library

86.7

Construction and extraction

57.5

All workers

53.7

Office and administrative support

50.3

Production

39.3

Healthcare support

25.0

Food preparation and serving related

16.8

Minimum formal education is one component of specific vocational preparation. In some occupations, it makes up much of the preparation time. A bachelor’s degree was required for more than half of business and financial operations workers and educational and instruction and library workers.

For construction and extraction workers, however, 49.0 percent had no degree requirement, and 47.2 percent required a high school diploma. Instead, these workers obtain much of their preparation through credentials, such as apprenticeship programs, prior work experience, or on-the-job training.

Percentage of workers with selected minimum education requirements by occupational group, 2022
Occupational group No minimum education High school diploma Bachelor's degree

Business and financial operations

1.7% 21.8% 69.4%

Educational instruction and library

1.8 16.4 59.4

Construction and extraction

49.0 47.2 0.8

All workers

30.2 40.0 19.0

Office and administrative support

13.1 75.8 5.6

Production

41.1 53.3 1.5

Healthcare support

25.3 63.8  

Food preparation and serving related

78.2 21.2 [1]

[1] Estimate is less than 0.5 percent.

These data are from the Occupational Requirements Survey. To learn more, see “Occupational Requirements in the United States — 2022.” Specific vocational preparation captures the minimum amount of time needed to develop skills for the job. Preparation time is divided into nine levels, ranging from as little as 4 hours to more than 10 years. Levels 6 through 9 indicate that over 1 year of preparation was needed. For more information on concepts and definitions in the survey, see the Handbook of Methods and the minimum formal education factsheet.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Half of civilian workers required over 1 year of preparation time to perform their jobs in 2022 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/half-of-civilian-workers-required-over-1-year-of-preparation-time-to-perform-their-jobs-in-2022.htm (visited March 29, 2024).

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