Vocational

Job analysis examines the duties and requirements of a job or occupation, including relevant skills, preparation, physical demands, cognitive demands, work activities, and work context. Resources such as O*NET and BLS occupational data can provide standardized information, while employment records, job descriptions, interviews, and employer information may help establish how a particular job was actually performed.

Vocational expertise may be relevant when a dispute concerns employability, occupational alternatives, return-to-work options, transferable skills, labor-market access, or the effect of documented restrictions on available work. Forensic vocational evaluations commonly use records, interviews, testing, occupational information, and labor-market research to address employability and earning-capacity issues. Disputes focused instead on employment policies, human-resources practices, discrimination, or wage-and-hour matters may require different employment expertise.

Vocational analysis may address employability, occupational alternatives, labor-market access, and wage information relevant to a person’s earning capacity. Those findings can provide inputs for a broader damages calculation, while projections involving future earnings growth, worklife assumptions, inflation, discounting, or present value may require economic analysis. The appropriate division of work depends on the disputed issues and each expert’s qualifications.