Applicability of O*NET in Australia

Abstract

The current research aimed to assess how well the Occupational Information Network (O*NET), an extensive on-line database of occupational information developed by the U.S. Department of Labor, could be applied in Australia. In the past the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations was designed to parallel the U.S. Dictionary of Occupational Titles, but it is not clear that the same effort will be put into developing an Australian version of O*NET. Further, given the ease of access to O*NET over the web, there will no doubt be a strong temptation to simply access the U.S. system. To assess the applicability of O*NET in Australia, 59 incumbents from 41 occupations rated their jobs on one aspect of O*NET, the Generalized Work Activities. Significant differences were found between Australian scores and means contained within the O*NET database. Although this represents only one small part of O*NET, the Generalized Work Activities form an important core of work related information and our results suggests that O*NET should not simply be applied to Australia without further local validation.