9311319 FERNANDEZ Two of the most prominent explanations given for relatively low rates of achievement by members of minority groups in U.S. labor markets have been called the "spatial mismatch" and the "skills mismatch" hypotheses. Proponents of the spatial mismatch hypothesis argue that many minority workers experience difficulties in finding and holding jobs because many employers have relocated from central-city locales near the homes of most minority workers to more remote suburban locations. Advocates of the skills mismatch hypothesis maintain that technological changes in the economy as a whole have changed the character of employment, leaving many workers, especially members of more poorly educated minority groups, without requisite skills to assume new jobs. This project examines both of these hypotheses through continuation of a case study of a plant that retooled (creating new forms of jobs) when it relocated from central Milwaukee to a suburban site in 1992. Lengthy interviews will be conducted with many employees who were surveyed in 1991, creating a longitudinal database that will help determine the degree to which locational and employment-skill changes impeded the adjustment of minority workers to the new plant. Special attention will focus on analyses of decisions by workers to relocate their homes closer to the new plant (as opposed to commuting over longer distances) as a response to geographical changes and to examination of the processes by which workers were assigned to jobs in the new plant. This research will provide valuable new insights into two important dimensions of change in modern metropolitan economies. In addition to generating a detailed longitudinal database about this specific case, the research will provide simultaneous tests of two controversial hypotheses using methods that can be replicated in other contexts. ***
