"Identifying In-Demand
Skills for
Emerging and Evolving
Occupations"
Texas State Occupational
Information Coordinating Committee (SOICC)
Summary
The TX SOICC, as an on-going project in
its fourth year, has developed reports on emerging and evolving occupations
in Texas. Emerging occupations are new occupations in the workforce
- those whose requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) are not
defined by occupations in current occupational classifications or career
planning guides. Evolving occupations cover traditional job titles
that now require new combinations of knowledge, skills, and abilities.
The latest report (1999) identifies 54
occupations in eight industries as emerging or evolving -
occupations that will impact the Texas economy and create a need for revamped
training programs.
For each identified occupation, the reports
provide a Fact Sheet giving its emerging or evolving status, description,
KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities), education and training requirements,
wage estimates, outlook, and associated titles.
The purpose of the reports is to give all
decision-makers in the Texas employment and training system the information
they need to prepare skilled workers that can meet the demands of the changing
workplace.
O*NET was essential to this project because
it provided occupation descriptions and the definitions for the Knowledge,
Skills, and Abilities necessary for these jobs.
How
is O*NET being used?
O*NET's Content Model is used to provide
descriptive information and the definitions for the KSAs in the Fact Sheets.
O*NET codes are used in Associated Titles as a "crosswalk" to additional
information.
Who
is your target population?
Do you have a stake in the Texas labor
market? Or, are you interested in replicating the SOICC methodology in
your state? Then you are part of the target audience for SOICC reports.
The audience includes:
-
job seekers
-
employers
-
educators and curriculum developers
-
professional career and employment counselors
-
economic developers.
What kind
of results is O*NET helping you to achieve?
This project enables the employment and
training community to better serve the public in meeting WIA requirements.
It identifies the skills in demand locally, giving the foundation for educators
to align instruction to connect with actual occupations. Using the SOICC
approach, educators and trainers can now base their workforce curricula
on labor market data and employer input. O*NET language also simplifies
how that input can be gathered and consolidated.
This project can save time for other
SOICCs or employment agencies. The methodology used to identify emerging
and evolving occupations was designed to be replicable so that other agencies
can implement a similar project without starting from scratch.
Other results included:
1) The new combinations of KSAs
impacting Texas' economic growth were defined in a standardized manner
by using O*NET descriptors.
2) The occupations described were linked
to a national taxonomy by including O*NET codes as "Alternative Titles."
What
are the related program initiatives?
Other initiatives to which this study have
application included:
-
Workforce Investment Act (especially the programs
delivering training services).
-
Skills Standards
-
School-to-Career activities
Is your
product, program or service available for others to use?
Copies of Evolving and Emerging Occupations
in Texas are available for $8.00 each from
Texas SOICC Orders Dept.
9001 IH-35 North, Ste. 103B
Austin, Texas 78753-5233
In addition, the report's Executive Summary
is available on the Internet at: http://www.soicc.state.tx.us/emerging/executive.htm
What
other strategies make your product, program or service successful?
SOICC's strategies for success start with
going beyond labor market information traditionally used to analyze employment
trends. The study also included information gathered from surveys of industry
and educational stakeholders on the impact of changes on occupations.
This successful combination of vital information
will be applied to the next two phases of research:
-
TX SOICC will conduct more employer surveys,
worker focus groups, and task analyses to learn the level of KSAs needed
to perform well in the emerging and evolving occupations identified in
the report.
-
TX SOICC will also contact education and training
institutions to learn how they are updating curriculum with respect to
the knowledge, skills and abilities required in emerging and evolving occupations.
These two additional phases of research will
ensure that the SOICC's is responsive to employers, employees, and educators.
Do
you have other pertinent information?
The report also gives a vision for building
a "pipeline" of training services that will produce a supply of appropriately
skilled graduates.
Contact
information.
Barbara Miller, Project Coordinator
Texas State Occupational Information Coordinating
Committee (SOICC)
9001 IH-35, Suite 103B
Austin, Texas 78753-5233
Tele: 512-837-7484
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