International Standard Classification of Occupations

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:

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:

Job

A person's job is their role in society. A job is an activity, often regular and often performed in exchange for payment. Many people have multiple jobs, such as those of parent, homemaker, and employee. A person can begin a job by becoming an employee, volunteering, starting a business, or becoming a parent. The duration of a job may range from an hour (in the case of odd jobs) to a lifetime (in the case of some judges). The activity that requires a person's mental or physical effort is work (as in "a day's work"). If a person is trained for a certain type of job, they may have a profession. The series of jobs a person holds in their life is their career.

Jobs for people

Most people spend up to forty or more hours each week in paid employment. Some exceptions are children, those who are retired, and people with certain types of disability, but within these groups many will work part-time or occasionally, will work in one or more volunteer positions, or will work as a homemaker. From the age of 5 or so, many children's primary role in society—and therefore their 'job' -- is to learn and study as a student.

Book of Job

The Book of Job (/ˈdʒoʊb/; Hebrew: אִיוֹב Iyov) is one of the Writings (Ketuvim) of the Hebrew Bible, and the first poetic book in the Christian Old Testament. Addressing the theme of God's justice in the face of human suffering – or more simply, "Why do the righteous suffer?" – it is a rich theological work setting out a variety of perspectives. It has been widely and often extravagantly praised for its literary qualities, with Alfred, Lord Tennyson calling it "the greatest poem of ancient and modern times".

Structure

The Book of Job consists of a prose prologue and epilogue narrative framing poetic dialogues and monologues. It is common to view the narrative frame as the original core of the book, enlarged later by the poetic dialogues and discourses, and sections of the book such as the Elihu speeches and the wisdom poem of chapter 28 as late insertions, but recent trends have tended to concentrate on the book's underlying editorial unity.

1. Prologue in two scenes, the first on earth, the second in heaven (chapters 1-2)

Job: A Masque for Dancing

Job: A Masque for Dancing is a one act ballet produced for the Vic-Wells Ballet in 1931. Regarded as a crucial work in the development of British ballet, Job was the first ballet to be produced by an entirely British creative team. The original concept and libretto for the ballet was proposed by the scholar Geoffrey Keynes, with choreography by Ninette de Valois, music by Ralph Vaughan Williams, orchestrations by Constant Lambert and designs by Gwendolen Raverat. The ballet is based on the Book of Job from the Hebrew Bible and was inspired by the illustrated edition by William Blake, published in 1826. Job had its world premiere on 5 July 1931, and was performed for members of the Camargo Society at the Cambridge Theatre, London. The first public performance of the ballet took place on 22 September 1931 at the Old Vic Theatre.

Development

The concept for a ballet based on the Book of Job was first proposed by the scholar Geoffrey Keynes, who was a respected authority on the work of William Blake.