Small businesses may offer the brightest employment picture for young American workers who do not have college degrees -- unless they're black job-seekers.

A University professor has found that small firms are important in generating new jobs that would tend to be given to young job seekers.

But Kenneth Gray, associate professor of vocational education, discovered in a national survey he conducted that young black workers are the most underrepresented employees in the small business sector, particularly if they do not have post-secondary education. The survey investigated the distribution of employed 25-year olds among firms of various sizes.

When looking at distribution by race, Gray said, "this study does not prove discrimination, but it strongly suggests a lack of equal opportunity."

Gray said this should raise concern because small firms are an important source of new jobs and black job seekers could be excluded from positions in certain small business industries such as construction companies and wholesale marketing firms.

Gray used numbers collected by the Center for Human Resource Research in Columbus, Ohio as a springboard for his investigation. The research center survey is conducted annually and is funded through the U.S. Department of Labor.

The research center does not always ask the same questions every year, Gray said, so he had to use 1986 figures. That was the most recent year in which the group asked the interviewee to describe how large a business they worked for, he explained.

Of the 1,500 black workers sampled in 1986, 34 percent worked for a small business, as did 40 percent of the 876 Hispanic workers and 43 percent of the 3,517 white workers surveyed. The research center surveyed a total of 5,893 people that year.

Gray outlined four reasons why he thinks unequal distribution exists:

-- Small businesses tend to hire through the informal labor market --hiring by word-of-mouth or through people they know.

-- There are too few black small business owners.

-- Government agencies have Equal Opportunity Planning Commission requirements that a company must meet in order to bid on contracts. Small firms of 20 employees or less are excluded from this requirement, he added.

-- Small firms in the technical area prefer to hire people with vocational skills so they have the labor market advantage.

Large firms need trainable personnel with strong academic skills, while small businesses in technical areas prefer people with specific vocational or technical training, Gray explained.

Black youths in urban areas are 70 percent less likely to attend vocational school than any other group, Gray said.

Ed Dunkelberger, assistant director in charge of continuing education at the Centre County Vocational Technical School, said, "at this time we do not have one African-American student enrolled in our school. However, we do have foreign students."

Patricia Best, director of planning, research, and communication at the State College Area School District, said only 3 percent of the district's students are black.

"The reality is (that) young workers with technical skills have labor-market advantages. We need to help everyone get jobs," Gray said.

Gray made several suggestions for improving the job opportunities for people who have not attended college.

Creating policies within businesses and at the state and national levels is one answer, Gray said.

Legislators need to rethink the importance of small firms, he said. And the government needs to increase minority business ownership as well as rethink excluding small firms from Equal Opportunity Planning Committee requirements.

At the student level, a commitment from all schools to improve job placement programs is needed instead of just focusing on preparing all students for college, Gray said.