State State-of-the-art report - WageIndicator.org

occupation descriptions, drafted in consultation with national governments (Hoffman, Hoffman, 1999 1999; ILO
website). Revisions of ISCO were made in 1968 and 1988. ISCO-88 is a revision of ISCO ISCO-68.
Revisions of ISCO since 1958 have followed the revisions of the United Nations’ International
Standard Industrial Classification of all economic activities (ISIC) (Greenwood, 2004) 2004).
Since 1923, the International tional Conference of Labour Statisticians (ICLS) has established
international guidelines for labour statistics and has taken up the role in promoting the
internationally comparability of labour statistics (ILO, 2004). The ICLS advises the ILO whether the
current ISCO version needs to be revised, improved or adjusted. A revision would entail significant
changes to the conceptualisation underlying the classification and/or the structure. An
improvement might entail some changes to structure, but would not in involve volve significant change to
the conceptual basis of the classification. An adjustment would entail more minor changes,
primarily at the lower levels of the classification structure ( (Budlender, 2002).
In 1994, a European variant of the ISCO ISCO-88, ISCO-88(COM) M) was established as a result of
a coordinated effort ffort by National Statistical Institutes to implement ISCO ISCO-88 88 for census and survey
coding purposes (Elias and Birch, 1994). Problems European countries had with ISCO ISCO-88 where
tried to overcome with ISCO-88( 88(COM). COM). The problem was, among others, the difficulty
distinguishing between sub-major major group 12 and 13. In ISCO ISCO-88 88 these two groups were
distinguished based on the number of managers in the organisation, while ISCO ISCO-88(COM) uses the
number of employees in the organisation to convert an occupation to sub sub-major major group 12 or 13. A
more detailed overview of the distinctions between ISCO ISCO-88 and ISCO-88(COM) 88(COM) can be found at
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/ier/isc
http://www.warwick.ac.uk/ier/isco/isco88.html.
At the moment, ent, the ILO is improving ISCO-88 and the e final version of ISCO ISCO-08 is expected
to be published in 2008. Based on recent experiences with national occupational classifications the
ICLS advised the ILO to only improve ISCO-88, even though, since the development of ISCO-88,
the economies of the countries around the world have changed a lot. The updated ISCO-88 will be
based on the results of various questionnaires regarding the proposals made by the ILO and sent
to countries around the he world. In these questionnaires countries can respond to proposals like: ‘Do
you agree with the new definition?
definition?’, ‘Is it useful to create an extra unit group?’ etcetc. (ILO, 2005)
(See Appendix 2 for a draft version of ISCO ISCO-08 (March 2007).
The number of unit groups changed from 390 to 434. As can be seen in Table 3, the major
groups ‘Professionals’, ‘Technicians and associate professionals’, ‘Service and sales workers’ gr grow
in the number of unit groups, while the number of unit groups in major group ‘P ‘Plant and machine
operators and assemblers’ drop from 70 in ISCO ISCO-88 to 42 in ISCO-08. 08. There has been a shift from
some unit groups belonging to ‘Plant and machine operators and assemblers’ in ISCO ISCO-88, to major
group ‘Technicians and associate professionals’
professionals’. . This means at the same time that those unit
groups have arisen in skill level. In ISCO ISCO-88 these unit groups comprised first and second stages of
secondary education, while in ISCO ISCO-08 08 the skill level of these unit groups matches education which
begins at the age of 17 or 18, lasts about four years, and leads to an award not equivalent to a
first university degree. There have ave been major technical improvements since 1988 1988, which can
probably explain (at least) part of this shift. However, the skill level has yet not been empirically
tested, not for ISCO-88 and nor or for ISCO ISCO-08. The he increasing number of unit groups in the major
groups ‘Professionals’ and ‘Service and sales workers’ can be explain by the new added minor-
groups and by the split of various ISCO ISCO-88 unit groups into new unit groups. The major group
State-of-the-Art rapport
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