Ratings of 830 jobs on 45 characteristics: Factor and cluster analyses into age-enhanced, age-neutral and age-counteracted, and age-impaired categories

The current study measured the critical elements of jobs and characterized the jobs' suitability for aging workers based on ratings of those elements. The sample consisted of 830 job titles collected by the Employment and Voc ational Training Administration in Taiwan. For each job the ratings of 45 s pecific variables, falling into three major classes, were factor analyzed, using principal components analysis with varimax rotation. A nine-factor so lution explained 50.1% of the variance. Using a nonhierarchical clustering procedure, 830 jobs were classified into three homogeneous clusters which w ere significantly different on nine factors except for Manual Dexterity. Ma pping the ratings on the 9 factors and the characteristics of aging workers , the four job clusters were defined as Age-enhanced, Age-neutral, and Age- counteracted, and Age-impaired to describe the suitability for aging worker s.