Reading this figure from left to right shows that in the year 2000, there will be over 17 million professional jobs, some 22 million clerical jobs, and just over 4 million laborer jobs (the data excludes 3.9 million forestry jobs because there were no corresponding data on job holders and their literacy skills for this category in the sources summarized). While about 53 % of jobs are in fields with skill levels below that of the average clerical worker, some 56-57% of young adults have skill levels in Prose, Document, and Quantitative literacy above that level. However, while two-thirds or more of Whites and 3741% of Hispanics possess skill levels above the average level of clerical workers, only one in four or five Blacks have literacy skills above the average for clerical workers. This means African-Americans will tend to qualify mostly for the lower status, lower wage jobs of the next century;