[Title 20 CFR 404.1568]
[Code of Federal Regulations (annual edition) - April 1, 1996 Edition]
[Title 20 - EMPLOYEES' BENEFITS]
[Chapter III - SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION]
[Part 404 - FEDERAL OLD-AGE, SURVIVORS AND DISABILITY INSURANCE (1950- )]
[Subpart P - Determining Disability and Blindness]
[Sec. 404.1568 - Skill requirements.]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




  20
  EMPLOYEES' BENEFITS
  2
  1996-04-01
  1996-04-01
  false
  
  404.1568
  Sec. 404.1568
  
    EMPLOYEES' BENEFITS
    SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
    FEDERAL OLD-AGE, SURVIVORS AND DISABILITY INSURANCE (1950- )
    Determining Disability and Blindness
  


Sec. 404.1568  Skill requirements.

    In order to evaluate your skills and to help determine the existence 
in the national economy of work you are able to do, occupations are 
classified as unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled. In classifying these 
occupations, we use materials published by the Department of Labor. When 
we make disability determinations under this subpart, we use the 
following definitions:
    (a) Unskilled work. Unskilled work is work which needs little or no 
judgment to do simple duties that can be learned

[[Page 344]]

on the job in a short period of time. The job may or may not require 
considerable strength. For example, we consider jobs unskilled if the 
primary work duties are handling, feeding and offbearing (that is, 
placing or removing materials from machines which are automatic or 
operated by others), or machine tending, and a person can usually learn 
to do the job in 30 days, and little specific vocational preparation and 
judgment are needed. A person does not gain work skills by doing 
unskilled jobs.
    (b) Semi-skilled work. Semi-skilled work is work which needs some 
skills but does not require doing the more complex work duties. Semi-
skilled jobs may require alertness and close attention to watching 
machine processes; or inspecting, testing or otherwise looking for 
irregularities; or tending or guarding equipment, property, materials, 
or persons against loss, damage or injury; or other types of activities 
which are similarly less complex than skilled work, but more complex 
than unskilled work. A job may be classified as semi-skilled where 
coordination and dexterity are necessary, as when hands or feet must be 
moved quickly to do repetitive tasks.
    (c) Skilled work. Skilled work requires qualifications in which a 
person uses judgment to determine the machine and manual operations to 
be performed in order to obtain the proper form, quality, or quantity of 
material to be produced. Skilled work may require laying out work, 
estimating quality, determining the suitability and needed quantities of 
materials, making precise measurements, reading blueprints or other 
specifications, or making necessary computations or mechanical 
adjustments to control or regulate the work. Other skilled jobs may 
require dealing with people, facts, or figures or abstract ideas at a 
high level of complexity.
    (d) Skills that can be used in other work (transferability)--(1) 
What we mean by transferable skills. We consider you to have skills that 
can be used in other jobs, when the skilled or semi-skilled work 
activities you did in past work can be used to meet the requirements of 
skilled or semi-skilled work activities of other jobs or kinds of work. 
This depends largely on the similarity of occupationally significant 
work activities among different jobs.
    (2) How we determine skills that can be transferred to other jobs. 
Transferability is most probable and meaningful among jobs in which--
    (i) The same or a lesser degree of skill is required;
    (ii) The same or similar tools and machines are used; and
    (iii) The same or similar raw materials, products, processes, or 
services are involved.
    (3) Degrees of transferability. There are degrees of transferability 
of skills ranging from very close similarities to remote and incidental 
similarities among jobs. A complete similarity of all three factors is 
not necessary for transferability. However, when skills are so 
specialized or have been acquired in such an isolated vocational setting 
(like many jobs in mining, agriculture, or fishing) that they are not 
readily usable in other industries, jobs, and work settings, we consider 
that they are not transferable.