Introduction

Denial of employment because of the color of a person's skin, his faith>or his ancestry is a wrong of manifold dimensions. On the personalplane, it is an affront to human dignity. On the legal plane, in manycases, it is a violation of the Constitution, of legislation, or of nationalpolicy. On the economic and social plane, discrimination may resultin a waste of human resources and an unnecessary burden to thecommunity.

The recent recession underlined two fundamental challenges to thethe Nation's economy. One of these was unemployment2014acute in arecession, but still a chronic national problem. Although economicrecovery now appears to be under way, the President has declared that"the task of abating unemployment and achieving a full use of ourresources remains a serious challenge." * The other problem, paradoxically intertwined with that of chronic unemployment, was a shortageof skilled workers. Even in a "depressed area" like Detroit, "jobs . . .[were] going begging for lack of skilled workers to fill them." 2 The

same situation existed in many other cities. 3 Technological changes andreplacement of old industries by new ones have been largely responsiblefor increased unemployment. At the same time, they have increased thedemand for skilled craftsmen and technical workers. This demand willcontinue to grow. It is estimated, for instance, that for every i oo skilledworkers the Nation had in 1955, it will need 122 in 1965 and 145 in1975.* Yet today our vocational education and apprenticeship trainingprograms are not producing even enough skilled workers to replacethose who retire. 0

These twin problems, serious as they are for the Nation as a whole,

are magnified for minority groups that are subject to discrimination.The rate of unemployment for Negroes, for instance, was twice that ofthe white population during the recent recession. 6 In some cities morethan one-third of the Negro work force was unemployed. 7 The oldadage that Negroes are the last hired and the first fired was all too clearlydemonstrated. One of the reasons for this is that, despite a dramatic

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increase in types of employment available to Negroes during the past 20years, the mass of Negro workers are still confined largely to the lessskilled jobs. 8 This concentration in the ranks of the unskilled and semiskilled, the areas most severely affected not only by economic layoffsbut by technological change, means that Negroes will be in a poor positionto fill the future needs of...