NADL Fights Federal 'Unskilled' Classification of Dental Technicians

In September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which falls under the Department of Labor, lowered the occupational status of dental technicians from skilled to unskilled labor in compliance with a new education and training classification system.

The downgrade is the result of an overhaul of the Bureau's 50-year-old reference guide for labor statistics that identifies the education and training needed to be hired and become competent in a given field. Under the old system, technicians were classified as skilled laborers, in a category of workers who possessed two to four years of advanced education to succeed in their jobs. Now, technicians are classified as unskilled laborers who only require a high school education.
The NADL is concerned about the repercussions of the reclassification and is lobbying the Department of Labor to reverse it. "The proposed classification change for dental technicians to another occupational...