JobMarketHealth

U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration

O*NET®: Occupational Information Network (O*NET®) Database

The O*NET® Database describes what work in an occupation actually involves. It catalogs tasks, knowledge, skills, abilities, work activities, work context, tools and software, and related occupations.

Shown as contextUpdated on a rolling basis, with periodic database releases

What it measures

  • Tasks and detailed work activities performed on the job
  • Knowledge, skills and abilities, with importance and level ratings
  • Work context, such as physical conditions and interpersonal demands
  • Technology and software commonly used, plus alternate job titles
  • Related occupations that share requirements

What it does not measure

Most misreadings of labor data come from asking a dataset a question it was not built to answer. These are the limits worth holding onto.

  • Employment counts, wages, openings or any market quantity
  • Whether employers in your area currently want those skills
  • Certification or licensing rules for a particular state

Update cadence

Updated on a rolling basis, with periodic database releases.

Occupation pages name the specific release behind each figure and when it was imported, so you can see how current a number is rather than assuming it is new. More on that on about the data.

How JobMarketHealth uses it

  • Occupation descriptions, alternate titles and skill lists are shown on occupation pages for orientation.
  • O*NET® data is not an input to the Job Market Health score. It explains the work, not the market.
  • Alternate titles also help occupation search match the words people actually use for a job.

Where it sits

This dataset is displayed as context on occupation pages and is not an input to the score. Read the methodology.

Official source

U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration publishes Occupational Information Network (O*NET®) Database. JobMarketHealth organizes and derives from that public data and is not its publisher.

O*NET® attribution

This page and our occupation profiles use information from the O*NET® Database, by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license . JobMarketHealth organizes, reformats and in places derives summaries from O*NET® Database information. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed or tested those modifications. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The release in use is the O*NET 31.0 Database, as reported by our data service. See the data and career disclaimer.

O*NET® Resource Center database

Related guides

  • Occupation vs industry job dataIndustry is who pays you. Occupation is what you do. The fastest data is by industry, the data that matches a job title is slower, and bridging them requires weighting.

Ready to look at an occupation? Search occupations to see the score, wage context and outlook for a specific job.