The 2018 Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) system is a federal statistical standard used by federal agencies to classify workers into occupational categories for the purpose of collecting, calculating, or disseminating data. All workers are classified into one of 867 detailed occupations according to their occupational definition. To facilitate classification, detailed occupations are combined to form 459 broad occupations, 98 minor groups, and 23 major groups. Detailed occupations in the SOC with similar job duties, and in some cases skills, education, and/or training, are grouped together. General questions concerning the SOC may be sent by email or faxed to 202-691-6444.  To sign up to receive email notifications when the SOC webpages are updated with new information, enter your email address on the Subscriptions page under the “About SOC” tab.