The International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) is an International Labour Organization (ILO) classification structure for organizing information on labour and jobs. It is part of the international family of economic and social classifications of the United Nations. The current version, known as ISCO-08, was published in 2008 and is the fourth iteration, following ISCO-58, ISCO-68 and ISCO-88.
The ILO describes the purpose of the ISCO classification as: a tool for organizing jobs into a clearly defined set of groups according to the tasks and duties undertaken in the job. It is intended for use in statistical applications and in a variety of client oriented applications. Client oriented applications include the matching of job seekers with job vacancies, the management of short or long term migration of workers between countries and the development of vocational training programmes and guidance.
The ISCO is the basis for many national occupation classifications as well as applications in specific domains such as reporting of teaching, agricultural and healthcare workforce information. The ISCO-08 revision is expected to be the standard for labour information worldwide in the coming decade, for instance as applied to incoming data from the 2010 Global Round of National Population Censuses.
The ISCO-08 structure
The ISCO-08 divides jobs into 10 major groups: Managers Professional Technicians and associate professionals Clerical support workers Service and sales workers Skilled agricultural, forestry and fishery workers Craft related trades workers Plant and machine operators, and assemblers Elementary occupations Armed forces occupations
Each major group is further organized into sub-major, minor and unit (not shown) groups. The basic criteria used to define the system are the skill level and specialization required to competently perform the tasks and duties of the occupations.
Major group 1
Managers
11 Chief executives, senior officials and legislators
111 Legislators and senior officials
112 Managing directors and chief executives
12 Administrative and commercial managers
121 Business services and administration managers
122 Sales, marketing and development managers
13 Production and specialized services managers
131 Production managers in agriculture, forestry and fisheries
132 Manufacturing, mining, construction, and distribution managers
133 Information and communications technology service managers
134 Professional services managers
14 Hospitality, retail and other services managers
141 Hotel and restaurant managers
142 Retail and wholesale trade managers
143 Other services managers
Major group 2
Professionals
21 Science and engineering professionals
211 Physical and earth science professionals
212 Mathematicians, actuaries and statisticians
213 Life science professionals
214 Engineering professionals (excluding electrotechnology) 215 Electrotechnology engineers 216 Architects, planners, surveyors and designers 22 Health professionals 221 Medical doctors 222 Nursing and midwifery professionals 223 Traditional and complementary medicine professionals 224 Paramedical practitioners 225 Veterinarians 226 Other health professionals 227 Medical Assistant professionals 23 Teaching professionals 231 University and higher education teachers 232 Vocational education teachers 233 Secondary education teachers 234 Primary school and early childhood teachers 235 Other teaching professionals 24 Business and administration professionals 241 Finance professionals 242 Administration professionals 243 Sales, marketing and public relations professionals 25 Information and communications technology professionals 251 Software and applications developers and analysts 252 Database and network professionals 26 Legal, social and cultural professionals 261 Legal professionals 262 Librarians, archivists and curators 263 Social and religious professionals 264 Authors, journalists and linguists 265 Creative and performing artists