Blacks Move Up in White-Collar Jobs, Latinos Lag

Blacks have made substantial gains in securing white-collar jobs in California, but Latinos are falling behind other minorities in holding the same kind of positions, the Legislature was told Monday.

Making it worse for Latinos, the Senate Office of Research reported, is the fact that the number of blue-collar jobs in which they are concentrated is shrinking as the state continues to shift from manufacturing to service industries.

Latinos, at 25% of the California population in the 1990 federal census, filled only 11.3% of 2.5 million white-collar positions, the study found. They held 37.8% of nearly 1 million blue-collar jobs and 33.6% of service jobs.

Blacks, who in the census account for 7% of the population, held 7.3% of the white-collar positions. Asians, who total 9% of the population, exceeded parity with 11.2% in such posts, the report said.

Thanks to strong 1970s civil rights efforts aimed at blacks, they “reaped measurable benefits that probably endure in the workplace today,” the report said. It did not cite other census figures for comparison.

The report also noted that in California, “Hispanics have not made comparable gains.”

Among professionals within the white-collar labor force--a sub-classification that includes attorneys, for example--the study found that Asians held 14.5% of such positions, blacks 4.5% and Latinos 5.5%. In state and local government, Anglos filled 81% of the top administrative jobs while accounting for only 57% of the 1990 population, the report said.

The Senate researchers based their findings on census and other federal data, and information provided by newspaper articles, the state Personnel Board, state Department of Fair Employment and Housing and other published studies.

The report did not draw a conclusion as to whether Latinos, blacks, Asians and other minorities are better or worse off at the workplace than in the past.

Editor Rebecca LaVally said the report is intended only to present current data. It does not recommend bold new legislation but does suggest that government agencies and private employers make more information available on minority employment.