SRDC Series #145

Minority Job Skills, Southern Rural Development Center Grant Project Report-Abstract
April 1991

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Black adults 35 to 55 years-of-age and youth 16 to 19 years-of-age in East Texas and Western Arkansas are the most underemployed and unemployed population groups. Ability to develop their job skills to upgrade their employability can improve individual, family and community economic stability.

The Southern Rural Development Center at Mississippi State University granted $15,000 to the Texas Agricultural Extension Service for an applied research project that would instill job skills in Black workers who were unemployed or underemployed.

The Minority Job Skills project was conducted by the Texas Agricultural Extension Service in cooperation with the 1890 Agricultural Program, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, from November 1988 to December 1990. A training manual, thirteen publications and four video vignettes were developed and tested with unemployed and underemployed older teens and middle-aged Black adults in East Texas and Western Arkansas as described in the following report.

This project represents an investment in the economic development of the Southern Region by the Southern Rural Development Center. Future use of the program will help individuals and employers better match skilled labor to jobs that will sustain the economy of the region.