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.

 

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

 

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.

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