"This notion, long a staple of civil rights rhetoric, turns out to be dismayingly accurate. Indeed, according to the lead story in Tuesday?Ûªs Wall Street Journal, blacks were the only racial group to suffer a net loss of jobs during the 1990-91 recession. Everybody else?ÛÓwhites, Asians, His-panics, women?ÛÓgained more jobs than they lost during that period of restructuring, relocation and downsizing.</br></br>In an impressive?ÛÓand deeply disturbing?ÛÓpiece of computer-assisted journalism, the Journal analyzed the employment records of 35,242 companies that file reports with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. These companies employ more than 40 million people?ÛÓabout a third of the national work force?ÛÓso the findings are of proiound significance.</br></br>Sorting out the causes and cures of the trend may take years of investigation and analysis?ÛÓno doubt beginning with Congressional Black Caucus Foundation?Ûªs 23rd annual legislative conference.</br></br>But some things already are clear, including the fact that EEOC filings on ""minority?Û? employment?ÛÓbecause they include statistics for all minorities and women?ÛÓtend to hide the specific work force problems of blacks. For instance, Dial Corp., which takes pride in its diversity program, was able to show an impressive increase in ""minority?Û? hiring, thanks to the recruitment of Asian-Americans and American Indians and to the fact that a disproportionately small percentage of white women were laid off. But blacks at Dial lost jobs at a rate two-thirds higher than for the work force as a whole.</br></br>It is also true?ÛÓthough not discernible from EEOC reports?ÛÓ that blacks still suffer from racial discrimination, both unconscious and deliberate. Job qualifications unrelated to the actual work to be performed?ÛÓsubjective assessments of their ability to get along with their co-workers, general but unsubstantiatable notions of their overall competence?ÛÓall work against blacks at the personnel office. (Test-case experiments involving white and black applicants of identical age and qualification consistently show employers preferring whites.)"