What is Transferable Skills Analysis (TSA)?

TSA translates a person's work history and demonstrated skills into a universe of occupations they could theoretically perform, then filters that universe through current medical restrictions, functional capacity, and labor market viability.

The vocational expert documents the work history with Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and O*NET codes, identifies skills and work fields, applies medical restrictions, searches for occupations within the retained skill set and tolerated physical and cognitive demands, and confirms labor market viability using BLS OEWS (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics) and local data (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.).

The DOT provides detailed physical demand and Specific Vocational Preparation (SVP) information (U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, 1991); O*NET provides current task and skill information (National Center for O*NET Development, n.d.). Best practice is to cross-reference both when performing TSA.

Transferability becomes the question whenever the pre-injury job is gone and the case turns on what replaces it. In a personal injury claim the gap between the wage of the job that was lost and the wages of the jobs that remain is the earning capacity loss, so the list of remaining occupations is where the number comes from. In a workers' compensation claim the same list answers whether suitable alternative work exists within the restrictions or whether retraining is needed. A long-term disability policy that moves from an own-occupation to an any-occupation definition asks it directly: which occupations, given the person's training, education and experience, could the claimant perform. In a wrongful termination case it frames the mitigation question, since the occupations a person is qualified for define where a reasonable job search would have looked. In a matrimonial matter it supports an imputed earning capacity for a spouse who has been out of the workforce, by identifying the occupations the spouse's prior work and education still open. Attorneys confirm the governing rule for their case.

A transferable skills analysis appears in the vocational report as a set of tables with a written rationale. The first table is the work history as coded: each prior job with its occupational code, the training time it required, its strength rating and the work fields and materials it drew on. The second is the list of occupations the skills transfer to, each with the same attributes, the restrictions it was tested against and a wage estimate for the person's labor market from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.). The rationale explains, occupation by occupation, which prior job supplied the skills and why the demands fit the documented restrictions. A third element, easy to overlook, is the list of prior occupations the injury closed; it is the other half of the comparison the earning capacity opinion rests on. The report also states which edition of each classification system was used and which restrictions were applied, since a different restriction set produces a different list.

Counsel reading an occupation list, their own expert's or the other side's, can test it against five questions. Do the restrictions applied match what the treating providers actually documented, or has a general statement been narrowed or widened? Does each surviving occupation sit at the same or a lower training level than the job that supplied the skills, since a transfer to a more demanding occupation implies training the analysis has not accounted for? Do the strength ratings and postural demands of the surviving occupations fit inside the restrictions, item by item? Is the wage figure tied to the person's own state or metropolitan area rather than a national figure? And has anyone checked that the occupations are hiring where the person lives, which is the labor market survey's job, not the transferable skills analysis's? An occupation list that survives those questions is evidence; one that fails any of them is the first topic of the deposition. The method page describes how the analysis is performed and what each data source contributes.