Semi-Skilled Work

To determine whether or not a claimant's skills will help them find work in the national economy the SSA has classified work as unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled. In classifying these occupations the Social Security Administration uses materials published by the Department of Labor.

The SSA defines semi-skilled work as "work which needs some skills but does not require doing the more complex work duties. Semi-skilled jobs may require alertness and close attention to watching machine processes; or inspecting, testing or otherwise looking for irregularities; or tending or guarding equipment, property, materials, or persons against loss, damage or injury; or other types of activities which are similarly less complex than skilled work, but more complex than unskilled work."

The SSA, when evaluating if a claimant can retrain for new work, will consider the claimant more able to find new employment if the new job requires the same or a lesser degree of skill, the use of similar tools, and similar raw materials, products, processes, or services.