A study examined the reading skills of minority and bilingual auto mechanics and office workers in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in order to determine the relationship between the reading skills tested in competency-based exams given in high schools and those required for on-the-job performance. The first phase of the study included both linguistic analyses of materials and task analysis of the jobs under study. During the second phase of the project, researchers conducted on-site interviews with and administered high school competency exams to 80 auto mechanics and 92 office workers who are from minority groups. The variance in on-the-job reading performance that can be accounted for by the reading skills on competency tests turned out to be 39 percent for auto mechanics and 25 percent for office workers. While the basic skills measured in competency-based exams were found to be more relevant to advanced jobs in both fields than to entry positions, they appeared to be good predictors of ability to accomplish job-related reading tasks, with general comprehension skills, such as finding a main idea and following a sequence of events to be transferable to reading at work. (MN)