http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... 20,00.html

Jobless Discrimination? When Firms Won't Even Consider Hiring Anyone Unemployed
By Adam Cohen Monday, May 23, 2011

When Sony Ericsson needed new workers after it relocated its U.S. headquarters to Atlanta last year, its recruiters told one particular group of applicants not to bother. "No unemployed candidates will be considered at all," one online job listing said.

The cell-phone giant later said the listing, which produced a media uproar, had been a mistake. But other companies continue to refuse to even consider the unemployed for jobs — a harsh catch-22 at a time when long-term joblessness is at its highest level in decades.

Refusing to hire people on the basis of race, religion, age or disability — among other categories — is illegal. But companies that turn away jobless people as a group are generally not breaking the law — at least for now.

Job seekers have long known, of course, that it's easier to land a job when you are still working. There are no hard data on discrimination against the unemployed. But there have been reports from across the country of companies' making clear in job listings that they are not interested in people who are out of work. Employment experts say other companies have policies of hiring only people with jobs — but do not publicly acknowledge their bias.

At an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hearing this year, Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, declared that "excluding the unemployed" is "becoming business as usual." Owens testified about a 55-year-old California woman who had applied for a job as a software-systems engineer. The recruiter for the position was enthusiastic until she learned that the woman had been out of work for six months. At that point, she told the woman she could not forward her résumé to the hiring company.

The apparent uptick in such incidents couldn't come at a worse time for the unemployed. The Great Recession has produced an unusually large number of long-term jobless. Forty percent of the nation's unemployed — some 4.4 million people — have been out of work for a year or more, the highest level since World War II. The long-term unemployed have far more difficulty finding work than people who have left the workforce more recently. The problem is worst for workers over 50, who often face age discrimination as well.

Some employers argue that they have a perfectly reasonable right to weed out the unemployed and that it is just good business. People who have lost jobs or have never been hired are less qualified as a group than those who are currently working, they say. People who are out of the workforce for a significant period of time may also have fallen behind in skills.

But advocates for the unemployed argue that in this economy there is no basis for negative inferences about people who are out of work. Many lost jobs for economic reasons or general corporate downsizing, not through any fault of their own. In a stronger job market, many would have found new jobs long ago.

These advocates also say that allowing companies to discriminate against the jobless is fundamentally unfair and threatens to condemn millions of Americans to permanent underclass status.

Unfair or bad policy, perhaps, but is it illegal? Federal civil rights laws do not protect the unemployed as a class, but some legal experts make a case that refusing to consider them for jobs is illegal. Policies that discriminate against jobless people, they argue, often discriminate against African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and disabled people — groups whose members are all more likely than average to be unemployed.

The Supreme Court has said that policies that appear to be neutral on their face can violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if they have a "disparate impact" on protected minority groups. But lawyers for employers claim that policies that discriminate against the unemployed do not have enough of a disproportionate impact on protected minorities to meet the high standard the Supreme Court has set for disparate-impact claims.

And they're probably right. Ending discrimination against the unemployed would most likely require new laws. In Congress, Representative Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat, has introduced the Fair Employment Act of 2011, which would amend the Civil Rights Act to make it illegal for employers to refuse to hire people simply because of their employment status.

In that respect, as in so many others, the states are starting to pull ahead of Washington. In March, New Jersey became the first state to adopt a law making it illegal to post job listings that make current employment a condition of applying or being hired. Several other states are considering similar laws.

Antidiscrimination law is tricky: there is no easy formula to determine which groups should be protected. As a nation, we have decided that race, sex, religion, national origin and disability should be protected classes, and we are getting there on sexual orientation.

Traditionally, the unemployed — who can, after all, give up membership in the group in an instant if they get a job offer — have not been regarded as a protected class. But as the Great Recession rages on and the plight of the long-term unemployed becomes more desperate, that may be about to change.

seems like a fairly stupid policy in this economy when a lot of people have used time off to sharpen their skills.

Full Compliment is so thin these days everyone is burning the candle at both ends. Many people with time are using that time exceptionally well. I wouldn't discount someone just because they currently hold no position. That would discount many students as well.

I'm more interested in experience and skills than work status. Hell, If that's the case then consider me self employed; an independent contractor or I'll go get a gas station job and come back.

See, I'm trying to figure out the logic behind the policy as well, and the best I can ascertain is that they think that the experience and skills deteriorate if you're not constantly working. That also brings up the question: would they also automatically reject someone who hasn't used the skill at hand in six months but has worked waiting tables or something since then?

Probably not automatically, but it will make you less appealing. Speaking as someone who has recruited for several Fortune 500 companies, I can say that long-term periods of "inactivity" (referring to the skill at hand) are probably as frowned upon as job-hopping. It obviously varies widely between companies and positions, but the idea seems to be that they want their candidates to be up to speed on the latest on whatever it is they do-- to have their fingers on the pulse of the industry, as it were. Even if you took five months off to become a dad you'll be perceived as stagnant and that immediately makes you less interesting than someone with similar experience and educational background who has been working constantly.

My personal hypothesis is they have these policies because there are throngs of unemployed people who apply for any job listing they see, even those they are completely unqualified for. While there probably are plenty of qualified unemployed people, it's more time consuming to find them. I think it really comes down to lazy recruiters.

Yes, as I understand it is a numbers game. As the employer, you're less likely to get burned with employees who are unreliable or just looking for any job they can get while waiting for the job they really want. It's a good policy... if your endgame is a rigid social class system.

Sounds about right.

And thanks for the more experienced angle as well, Jorge.

Some employers believe that someone who has fallen on hard times is more likely to steal from the company, which isn't too ridiculous to believe, but as someone said before, a good chunk of these people are just unemployed as a result of downsizing and the such.

I think the idea is that the people who were laid off were not "critical path" employees of their previous companies, so in a competitive market they aren't worth looking at. HR staff can use the lay-off as a free vetting tool, so they don't expend time and energy.


I don't think this problem is nearly as bad as age discrimination, which is rampant in engineering and software.

I've seen just the opposite, actually!

I had a friend apply for a job. He received an email confirmation that they received his application. In the email, the employer mentioned that they take past in the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) program. They receive a tax credit by hiring people who meet certain circumstances that can make it difficult to secure and maintain employment.

So, for participating companies, it is advantageous to hire people who have been out of work.

Nice to hear. It's like I always say about entities that discriminate, no matter the type of discrimination--you could lose out on some excellent members.

Just FYI, the criteria for selection and consideration (or the dealbreakers, specifically) isn't usually determined by recruiters, but by the Hiring Managers. If a company is refusing to consider the unemployed, it's a decision made by an HM. But again, it varies widely from company to company.

But isn't this discrimination against the employed? If an employer has two candidates they are deciding between, one who qualifies for the WOTC program and one who doesn't, wouldn't they now lean towards the one that qualifies for the WOTC program and get a tax credit?

Bottom line - companies should be hiring who THEY think is the best candidate. If you are the best person for the job - that should get you the gig, not some tax credit.

I know someone who was unemployed and got hired, and after they were hired they were told (i think by a coworker) that the company had been were emphasizing recruitment of unemployed people because of the economy (i don't think it had to do with a tax credit but i might be wrong--i think it was a more "do good" ethic, and i don't think they automatically discounted people who were employed). but that seems to be an outlier.

sorry, this post seems poorly written.

that post was basically the louis ck stand-up gig of this thread

white devil keeping me down

Employment and discrimination; basically a furious shit storm howling at a steady rate right now.

come again?

Employers discriminate all the time.

oh, ok.