An overview of occupational education was developed to secure answers to the following questions: (1) What is the nature of employment or employability, (2) What is involved in the world of work, (3) What is the nature of a career, and (4) What is formal education's contribution to these? In an attempt to classify and project the needs and demands of different types of employment, graphs were used to illustrate: (1) employment in major occupational groups, (2) employment in major industry groups, (3) employment by occupational families, (4) occupational opportunity trends, and (5) differential unemployment rates. The primary outcome of work is some specified product, but learning is also a concomitant of every job. A goal of occupational education is the gaining of specific skills or knowledge contributing to the efficient performance of some job which results in a product and learning. Each job requires specific combinations of skill, knowledge and experience for the sake of efficiency, but even more basic to employability are certain attitudes. A taxonomy of work was forwarded to illustrate the three basic problems to be confronted in occupational education: unemployment, underemployment, and overemployment. Objectives of the Rocky Mountain Educational Laboratory were specified. (EM)