Skills and Race in Hiring: Quantitative Findings from Face-to-Face Interviews

There is evidence that shifts in the demand for labor are disadvantaging young black men. To help explain this change, we analyze a set of quantitative measures derived from face-to-face interviews of employers in Detroit and Los Angeles. The measures encompass employer skill demands, hiring procedures, and racial attitudes, with racial representation (relative to the key outcome variable. Among other results, we find lower black representation (relative to area population) in firms with a literacy or numeracy requirement and firms that rely on the personnel interview as their primary screening device.