The government has no business creating the unemployed as a “protected” class. But there is a difference between having a company policy that no unemployed need apply and choosing a employed candidate over a unemployed candidate. If a company is trying to fill a slot with a hard to find tech skill set it is cutting its legs off by having a no unemployed need apply policy.They will never see the resume. The worst that will happen is they will have to interview a unemployed person and the interview will confirm he is not employable. Same applies in trying to fill a sales slot and not interviewing a laid off supersalesman whose company went out of biz which is quite common nowadays. A company that has a no unemployed need apply basically is limiting its pool of potential
opportunities for fear of having to read a resume from such a person. Quite honestly, I would fire a human resources manager if they were that lazy and bureaucratically inflexible. Having said that, the government has no business legislating against my HR manager’s stupidity.
I have never known a highly qualified person in a hard to fill skill set job that didn't get constant calls of job offers while they were employed. Perhaps there are some, but I've never known of it.
I used to get several job offers a week. I've been retired for many years and still get calls at home about employment.
You can move, change phone numbers, don't matter, they will track you down.