Posted on 05/26/2011 2:28:45 PM PDT by Borges
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
But they are interested in people that show they have no company loyalty at all and are willing to dump their current job for another if the pocket lining is enough.
How incredibly stupid
But in a free country, employers should have the right to hire, not hire, promote, and fire anyone they want for any reason.
It used to be one aspect of Freedom of Association.
The last thing we need is more government interference in private business.
.
I’m waiting for that contingent of FReepers to show up here and say the long-term unemployed shouldn’t be hired because they’re “lazy”, “got fired for cause”, or are “whiners”.
I have already been hit with this. I was told by the hiring manager at a major company that I was the strongest candidate he had interviewed. Then, he asked about my availability. I was laid-off. Not another word. They couldn’t get me out the door fast enough.
Yep same ones that say “just get a job at McDonald’s”.
I’ve got a rejection letter from McDonald’s, that says “over qualified for the position”.
The lesson is, if you are working for a company, and you know layoffs are coming, get your resume updated ASAP and start looking before the axe falls.
Oh, they are here. And the ones who say you are a no-good, worthless bum if you collect unemployment.
Being an unemployed job-seeker has always been an impediment to finding suitable employment and anyone who has been in the workforce should know this. It is somewhat unfair but, in my opinion, not the government’s business. If an applicant has what an employer needs and wants, not hiring such a person because they are currently unemployed is downright foolish. As for age discrimination, that stinks, but is usually difficult to prove. However, although illegal, it happens regularly, especially if you’re over 50.
Yep, that’s life. If you are looking for a house to purchase, and you see that everything seems fine about it, but it’s been on the market for over a year, while other houses in the area have sold within weeks, you are going to wonder what is wrong with the house, and not be very willing to take a chance on it, even though you may not see anything particularly wrong with the house.
It’s the same principle.
I agree and I think that they accidently published what was supposed to be private info. This is common and pretty much goes on everywhere.There is an opinion that after one is out of work for more than 6 months that they lose something companies are looking for.Right or wrong it is just the reality of a touch job market.
In a good economy I could see making that discrimination because you should have a job and if you were unemployed it would be easy to wonder why and previous employers are afraid to tell the truth if you were a bad employee.
But after 2008 so many qualified, hard-working people lost jobs, good jobs that required experience and skills it seems that they’d be more willing to at the very least, consider the unemployed.
That’s why I/we started our own group and worked for ourselves. Yes, I was part of the rat-race and until later on, did I realize that I was smarter than those clowns I was answering to at 9:30 in the mornings. Believe me..I was fired, laid off, meaning escorted by security etc. Experienced it all.
There were even jobs that I loved coming to work for, and getting a pink slip in the morning. I then said EFF THIS. A co-worker of mine who was way up the food chain also had it coming, and he grabbed all the accounts and phone numbers and took 50% of the clients of the company with him. Like Donald Trump said, you can never get rich working for other people.
Or, if already unemployed, just play the hand you are dealt in that game and reply "two weeks from tomorrow..."
I can see why some employers do this. An ad that is open to anyone will get hundreds of applications from people who are desperate.
This seems totally unfair and it hurts the unemployed in the short run. But in a free market it just won’t be a long-term problem because companies cannot just continue to swap the same employees and grow. Some companies are going to end up with vacancies that can only be filled by people from the rank of the unemployed.
But the elephant in the room is the anti-growth policies of the 0bama administration. They wasted over a year on 0bamaCare during the time when they should have been implementing policies to speed the recovery. Instead they used all the political energy doing something that hurts job growth.
I was working for a nationwide retailer in 1995.We were told in a meeting on Wednesday "not to worry,your jobs are safe";next Monday I (least seniority)was pink-slipped on arrival as were two others in my department later in the week.
Jump to 1997 when 75 of us assigned to a Fortune 500 site were blind-sided by our employer losing a contract and immediately shutting down our division of the company(several other divisions were unaffected but did not need more people).THe news was a form in our pay envelopes even though we were assured no cause to worry right up to the moment we got the notices!
You might wonder about loyalty.
“Do you think they were told by someone in a higher place to do that would this do something to employment numbers perhaps? “
No. I believe it’s all about risk aversion. Somebody who is employed is valuable to somebody else and is not as big a risk as somebody who is not employed. The unemployed might have been let go for cause. There’s no such stigma attached to somebody who is employed.
Also, somebody looks more valuable if you have to pay extra to hire them away from another company. Fruit lying on the ground is always suspect. Turn it over and it might be rotted underneath.
No one should ever say that they are unemployed. Consulting is the way around it even if it is consulting for your sister...
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