turnover, or vacancy chains. The reason for this omission is that historical data past 1970 is not available. How ever, the study does include some limited time-series analy sis. Second, while the analysis presented here attempted to include the major determinants of an employee's position, it was not possible to consider all such factors. In addition to race, sex, and professional or nonprofessional status this study takes into account education, length of service, time-in-grade, age, geographic location, and organizational unit. Not included were such factors as occupation or personal ability. The third limitation is that the nonblack minorities- Spanish-surnamed Americans, American Indians, and Orientals-are discussed as a group rather than individually. The groups were combined because of time constraints. The final limitation concerns the quality of the information used in the study. The analysis can be only as good as the data which it uses. All of the data used in this study except that on education came from the Department's automated personnel file. The educational data were taken from individual employee's personnel folders. The reliability of both these sources of data were checked. They appeared generally correct although each contained some mistakes. While not accounting for all limitations, the Task Force believes that this study overcomes enough of them to serve as a basis for making and implementing policy. 1/see p. of the statistical appendix for more information on the educational data. focuses on the representation and distribution of employees 2/ within the professional ranks. But in order to gain a more complete perspective of the status of minorities and women, it is useful to begin by looking at the whole pic ture of their employment pattern before beginning' a specific analysis of underutilization. This overview discloses a large degree of racial and sexual imbalance. An important factor affecting the status of blacks and women in the Department is their concentration in nonprofessional jobs. In aggregate, 65 percent of the Department's employees are in professional jobs, while this same proportion of blacks and 68 percent of women are nonprofessionals. The largest concentration of employees in nonprofessional jobs is found among black women, 80 percent of whom fall into this classification. Nonblack minorities tend to be 2/ Thi This study focuses on the professional classification since this is the area in which most of the underutilization of these groups is found. |