Bureau of Labor Statistics > Occupational Requirements Survey > Publications > Factsheets

Combining multiple job requirement estimates

The Occupational Requirements Survey (ORS) publishes job-related information on physical demands; environmental conditions; education, training, and experience; as well as cognitive and mental requirements. The job requirements reflect those necessary for workers to perform critical tasks in support of the critical job functions, and not the capabilities of individual workers.

The ORS is designed to produce estimates of the percentage of workers that have individual job requirements. Estimates of the percentage of workers with combined job requirements are not available aside from a few select combinations in the Special Release Datasets published on the ORS data page. More information on the Special Release Datasets can be found in the August 2024 special release and Strength and specific vocational preparation up to 1 month factsheets.

Understanding the percentage of workers with multiple job requirements can be useful to job seekers, vocational and rehabilitation experts, safety and medical professionals, and the disability community. Combined job requirements could be used to find relevant jobs for individuals with a specific set of skills or multiple limitations.

This factsheet provides an exploratory method for users to better understand the percentage of workers that could have multiple job requirements. These methods are informational tools to gain insight into combined job requirements not published by ORS, and estimates created using these methods are not the same as official ORS estimates published in the data query tools and complete datasets on the ORS data page.

Estimating workers with multiple job requirements

Assuming job requirements exist similarly in different subsets of the population, ORS estimates can be multiplied to get a sense of the percentage of workers with multiple job requirements. Some job requirements may be grouped together and are considered additive, such as levels of strength (e.g., light or medium) or specific vocational preparation. Additive job requirements can be added together before calculating the combined job requirements. For more information, see the category and additive codes factsheet. When applying this method, users can combine stand-alone requirements as well as additive requirements.

Consider an example using the following ORS requirement percentages for general office clerks in 2023:

81.1 percent require a sedentary strength level
14.9 percent require a light strength level
27.0 percent are exposed to a quiet noise

Sedentary and light strength levels are additive, with 96.0 percent of general office clerks required to perform work with a sedentary or light strength level. Quiet noise intensity is used as a stand-alone estimate in this example.

Assuming that strength levels and noise intensity are independent of each other and that a quiet noise intensity requirement exists uniformly across worker strength levels, we multiply these two percentages.

96.0 percent * 27.0 percent ≈ 25.9 percent

Therefore, an estimated 25.9 percent of general office clerks in the national economy experience a quiet noise intensity level and have a strength level not exceeding light.

Extending the example above further, 26.5 percent of general office clerks do not have a supervisor present. This requirement represents the lowest percentage of the requirements selected, meaning at the maximum, no more than 26.5 percent of general office clerks meet these combined requirements. Again, this number can be refined further by assuming these job requirements exist similarly in different subsets of the population.

96.0 percent of workers with sedentary or light strength levels * 27.0 percent of workers with quiet noise intensity level * 26.5 percent of workers with supervisor not present ≈ 6.9 percent of general office clerks

Therefore, an estimated 6.9 percent of general office clerks have no supervisor present, required sedentary or light strength, and have a quiet noise intensity level.

Calculating occupational employment for job requirements, provides information on how to combine job requirements with Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics employment estimates.

Range estimates

In instances where percentage of worker estimates cannot be published as point values, the estimate may be published as a range. Ranges incorporate the point estimate’s standard error to form a one-sided 90-percent confidence interval, rounded to the nearest 5 percent. For more information on ranges, see the range estimates factsheet. A similar approach to estimating the percentage of workers with certain job requirements can be applied when working with ORS range estimates.

The percentage of roofers exposed to a loud noise level in 2023 is published as a range of less than 25 percent rather than a point estimate. A medium strength level was required for 74.7 percent of roofers. A user can use the range boundary to determine the maximum number of roofers that experienced loud noise and required medium strength.

Again, assuming that job requirements exist similarly in subsets of the population.

<25 percent * 74.7 percent ≈ <18.7 percent

Therefore, less than 18.7 percent of roofers in the national economy are estimated to experience a loud noise intensity level and required a medium strength level.

Extending the example further, less than 15 percent of roofers required only a short demonstration (up to 4 hours) of specific vocational preparation (SVP). This requirement represents the lowest percentage of the requirements selected, meaning at the maximum, no more than 15 percent of roofers meet these combined requirements, and it’s possible that no workers had all three requirements. For this example, the number can be refined further by assuming these job requirements exist similarly in different subsets of the population.

<25 percent of workers with exposure to loud noise * 74.7 percent of workers with medium strength * <15 percent of workers with SVP of a short demonstration ≈ <2.8 percent of roofers

This method estimates that less than 2.8 percent of roofers were exposed to loud noise, required medium strength, and only required a short demonstration for SVP.

Calculating overlaps in the percentage of workers for multiple requirements

For some occupations, multiple job requirements may be prevalent enough that a minimum portion of overlap between certain requirements can be assumed. For example, in 2023, 58.9 percent of receptionists and information clerks required either an SVP 1 or 2 and 74.3 percent required sedentary strength. Because both of these requirements account for over half of all receptionists and information clerks, a minimum amount of overlap is known. We can calculate the minimum percentage of workers that must have both requirements by:

Finding the percentage of workers not requiring sedentary strength

100 percent – 74.3 percent = 25.7 percent

Assuming all of the non-sedentary workers required an SVP 1 or 2 and removing them

58.9 percent – 25.7 percent = 33.2 percent

It’s possible that more receptionists and information clerks required SVP 1 or 2 and sedentary strength, but at a minimum 33.2 percent met these requirements.

Users should consider whether the combined estimates are within an acceptable threshold of reliability for their intended purpose. Standard errors are made available with the release. More information on standard errors and confidence intervals is available on the ORS standard errors page.

Assumptions

Except for additive requirements, job requirements are collected separately. The actual amount of overlap between distinct job requirements is unknown (e.g., the overlap of strength and specific vocational preparation requirements for specific occupations is unknown) except for instances where multiple job requirements may be prevalent enough that a minimum portion of overlap can be assumed. For example, all workers with requirement A could also have requirement B, or no workers with requirement A may also have requirement B. The method in this factsheet assumes the percentage of workers with a given requirement is not affected by whether workers have other requirements. That is, if 30 percent of workers have requirement A, that 30 percent applies equally across all workers, regardless of workers having requirement B. There are a variety of assumptions included in this approach and requirements could even be negatively correlated, e.g., in the extreme case, no jobs with requirement A also have requirement B.

Last Modified Date: August 13, 2026