The National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce (EQW) completed its first analysis of data from the EQW National Employer Survey of 4,625 establishments that was conducted in conjunction with the Census Bureau to document the practices and expectations of employers in their search for a skilled work force and that elicited 3,347 responses (72% response rate). Among the main findings of the analysis were the following: (1) restructuring of the economy has not led to a deskilling of work; (2) the use of high-performance work systems among employers still remains the exception rather than the rule; (3) virtually all establishments (97%) make some investment in formal or informal (on-the-job) training; (4) on average, establishments consider just over 80% of their workers to be fully proficient in their current jobs; (5) there is little evidence that establishments are making significant investments in remedial training or basic education; (6) although employers consider years of schools and skills certificates when making hiring decisions, they pay little attention to measurements of school performance. (Appended are tables detailing the response rates of different groups of employers and the distribution of survey sample by industry and establishment size.) (MN)