| Unemployment and underemployment are central social problems, yet public policies intended to deal with them are far from adequate, because so little is known of the interaction between public policies and the hiring practices of private-sector employers. This study examines jobs policies of the seventies and eighties through interviews with 78 corporations. The purpose of the survey is to test the effectiveness of these programs and to determine their implications for public-private initiatives.;Three theories are advanced to explain this corporate behavior. First, there is within companies a deep distrust of government and government hiring programs. This culture of distrust is based on negative experience and is reinforced by anecdotes that have clearly become part of company folklore. It is expressed in resistance to government employment programs.;Second, personnel departments rather than acting as recruiters of talent for their companies, function as gatekeepers screening out those who appear unsuitable and letting in those who will be acceptable. Personnel departments are ramparts which few of those whom government programs would help are able to breech.;A third theory has to do with the functioning of the secondary labor market. It has long been accepted that for professionals and the primary segment of the labor market, even at the entry level, school, family, fraternal, and "old boy" networks are a primary hiring mechanism. This study discloses that personnel departments operate similar mechanisms at the entry level of the secondary labor market. Because blacks, women, minorities, and the poor have little access to these secondary labor market networks, they are excluded from a number of jobs.;The study found that most programs do not work. Of the firms interviewed, only 23% have successful government sponsored hiring programs. When companies hire it is most often through networks or contacts. In 63% of the companies surveyed, networks were the preferred hiring mechanism. |
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