ANZSCO is a hierarchical taxonomy comprised of 8 occupation families. Each family has been categorised based on the defined skill level of the occupations. ANZSCO has been developed with an emphasis on skill level due to it being a central element in the assessment and categorisation of High, Mid, and Low skilled workers for immigration purposes.

LOT is a dynamic function-based taxonomy which was created in order to provide a comprehensive view of the current labour market. LOT is comprised of 28 Career Areas and 182 Occupation Groups. The LOT hierarchy clusters occupations that are similar in job functions, skills, and credentials. This results in common job transitions being more easily identified.

As an example, within the ‘Human Resources’ LOT Career Area we can easily identify transitions between related occupations. We can see that the occupations ‘Human Resources Assistant’, ‘Human Resources Specialist’, and ‘Human Resources Manager’, are categorised within the same grouping.

Alternatively, within ANZSCO those same occupations have been separated into the ANZSCO families for ‘Clerical and Administrative Workers’, ‘Professionals’, and ‘Managers’. This is due to the ANZSCO families being grouped by defined skill level, rather than job-functions. This separation increases the effort required to identify transitions between occupations as management level jobs are commonly split into separate occupation families to their entry-level or mid-level counterparts.