Six So-called "Job Creators" Who Won't Hire the Unemployed

Alternet

As President Obama hits the road on his jobs agenda bus tour, millions of individuals trying to re-enter the job market, seeking to eke out a modest living so that they too can live the American Dream – or what’s left of it anyway – are stuck in a rut. They write hundreds of cover letters, perfect their interview techniques and network like crazy, but sometimes the barriers are too high.

What some may not know is that a number of employers, including household-name companies, have taken the position that the unemployed should forget about obtaining a job altogether.

Log on to any jobs site, do a quick search and the results may surprise you: slews of job ads are essentially warning the out-of-work that they worthless and disposable.

Welcome to 21st Century, post-Recession hiring discrimination: where you must be an “employed or recently employed” person to get a job.

The America I learned about in school was called "the land of the free." We were taught that anyone who was willing to work hard and save their money could climb the ladder to financial and social success. This included recent immigrants and the working class and other groups who were part of America's underclass. We were taught to be proud to live in a country where we were entirely free from class distinctions or prejudice. and, like the heroes of the Horatio Alger novels, our own virtues were certain to shine so brightly that we would capture the attention and approval of the rich and powerful who would reward us with their patronage. It took some real-life experience to teach me that I had been fed a lot of propaganda and that the majority of us live from paycheck to paycheck, that is, if we are lucky enough to get one at all, especially in this depression.

What I see now is an attempt to return to the actual living and working conditions that prevailed in the nineteenth century. Our population is being stripped of all the hard-won rights and working conditions we have achieved through many years -- like the five-day work week, safe working conditions, pensions, health care, the elimination of child labor and paid vacation, to name a few. Unions insist on fair salaries and working conditions.

I think the policy of the corporate bigwigs in hiring only the already-employed is just another means of separating our population into "haves" and "have nots." It gives a corporation some prestige in their own eyes and those of other business leaders. They can brag about their exclusivity, I myself have worked for some companies with such a policy and seen one of my co-workers, who had 20 years of experience and was good at her job, denied permanent employment because she had no degree.

Our country is rapidly dividing into two classes - the "haves" and the "have nots." The middle class is shrinking and the working class is getting bigger. In the not-so-distant future I foresee our own country becoming one with a very small group of the ruling elite and the rest of us dirt-poor.

It distresses me to see people of the middle class, many of whom live from paycheck to paycheck themselves, trashing the working class for the same things that the rich have been accusing them of.

Imagine what could happen if the two classes joined together in our mutual interests.

reply to post by Sestias


Well, let's find these companies and burn them to the ground.

This news has been covered a few times already.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I have seen this too where they ask for the presently-employed or recently unemployed.
??????!!!!
Why not just accept the best person for the position regardless of their employment status?
My suspicion is that they don't want to have pay unemployment for new hires that don't last for whatever reason.
It's the only logical thought I can find to back up this position.

We might end up having to send the illegal immigrants packing so our kids can pick the berries.
This is not to be anti-immigrant or pro-child labor.
Things may get that bad if indeed they aren't already for many America families.

reply to post by kro32

Your thread is from 2010, over a year ago. My search did not turn up your thread. I am very sorry for my mistake, However, I believe the topic is still timely and it doesn't hurt to re-introduce it now.

reply to post by Sestias


When I was in a position to hire, I could tell the difference in the confidence and attitude levels of an employed versus an unemployed applicant, generally speaking. The employed usually came better prepared with references, and seemed more up to date on skills. Again that's generalizing. However to discriminate against someone who presents well and has the required qualifications goes against human rights. Some people deserve a break. Lots, including me, have felt the sharp knife of cutbacks.

Originally posted by Sestias

The America I learned about in school was called "the land of the free." We were taught that anyone who was willing to work hard and save their money could climb the ladder to financial and social success. This included recent immigrants and the working class and other groups who were part of America's underclass.

Why worry about companies who won't hire the unemployed? The America I learned about in school was called "the land of the free," too, but I take that phrase differently. "Free" means making your own destiny WITHOUT the need or compulsion to work for a corporation. Too many people clamor at the door demanding to be made slaves.

Now let me tell you a true story about some immigrants who came here with nothing. First came Minh. He was a "boat person" picked up in the sea on a leaky boat from Vietnam. He wound up in the Phillipines and eventually immigrated to the US. He got a job as a janitor at the minimum wage. A few years later his sister showed up. She had walked across the mine fields in Cambodia and got to Thailand before she got here. She found a part time job in the back room of a Chinese restaurant--hard, hard work.

But the thing was, they left their parents and eight siblings in Vietnam. Unbeknownst to me Minh had a second minimum wage job where he saved (brace yourself) $30,000 over ten years. $20K was for plane tickets to het his family out of Vietnam under the "Orderly Departure Program" set up between the US and the Vietnamese government to reunite families. Minh's family, being Chinese, were outcasts in Vietnam because they were the middle class and successful there. When they got over here they had zero. Their only wealth was wrapped up in a few mother-of-pearl on black painted wood. I helped the family rent a house, four kids to a bedroom.

The kids found s***-jobs, all minimum wage or less (restaurants can do that). In six months they had purchased a new house in a nearby large city. In two years they owned both a Phoa Hoa restaurant and a seven-eleven market. I have no doubt they will wind up millionaires. BTW, only two of them speak any kind of passable English. The youngest, who was about eight when she came over, grew up fluent, of course.

The amazing thing about this family is that they had no appreciable education, were not fluent in English, were people "of color," and arrived in our modern country penniless. But they did not whine about any of this. They assumed they would have to make it on their own, and that's what they did.

THAT'S the promise of America. Get ahead by your own efforts. Don't depend on someoene else, then blame them when they don't do enough for you.

It makes a twisted kind of sense, in a time of 100 to 1 or more resume's received per job floated, to eliminate vast quantities of them first so that the remainder can be given proper consideration by your understaffed HR department.

That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean I agree with it.

In fact -- I am starting a new business today. That business will be incorporated as a limited liability company, maintain a mail drop and virtual physical presence for meetings, and so on, and will exist primarily to provide job seekers with an "employment" reference they can use to show current employment when seeking jobs. I can even provide "brand name services" (your supervisor contact telephone number will alert my operator to answer in the business name of your choice).

I'm going to get paid, and a bunch of terminally unemployed folk across the country will have a current "job reference." Win / win!

Originally posted by 0zzymand0s
It makes a twisted kind of sense, in a time of 100 to 1 or more resume's received per job floated, to eliminate vast quantities of them first so that the remainder can be given proper consideration by your understaffed HR department.

That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean I agree with it.

In fact -- I am starting a new business today. That business will be incorporated as a limited liability company, maintain a mail drop and virtual physical presence for meetings, and so on, and will exist primarily to provide job seekers with an "employment" reference they can use to show current employment when seeking jobs. I can even provide "brand name services" (your supervisor contact telephone number will alert my operator to answer in the business name of your choice).

I'm going to get paid, and a bunch of terminally unemployed folk across the country will have a current "job reference." Win / win!

That's an awesome Idea! Maybe a bunch of us should start doing this all over the country, HA! Best solution I have seen yet.

If America is the land of the free then why shouldn't these companies be able to not hire someone that has been unemployed for a period of time?

reply to post by Dilligaf28


Maybe because the US is also supposedly a land of opportunities, and that can't happen if those who have keep it for themselves.

reply to post by aboutface

When I was in a position to hire, I could tell the difference in the confidence and attitude levels of an employed versus an unemployed applicant, generally speaking. The employed usually came better prepared with references, and seemed more up to date on skills. Again that's generalizing. However to discriminate against someone who presents well and has the required qualifications goes against human rights. Some people deserve a break. Lots, including me, have felt the sharp knife of cutbacks.

Well, of course that's to be expected, I'm sure you'll agree. I'm sure some of the unemployed were almost desperate to get a job.

But it's good you noticed. I can see how some employers would weed them out, as unfair as that would be.

Originally posted by 0zzymand0s
It makes a twisted kind of sense, in a time of 100 to 1 or more resume's received per job floated, to eliminate vast quantities of them first so that the remainder can be given proper consideration by your understaffed HR department.

That doesn't make it right, and it doesn't mean I agree with it.

In fact -- I am starting a new business today. That business will be incorporated as a limited liability company, maintain a mail drop and virtual physical presence for meetings, and so on, and will exist primarily to provide job seekers with an "employment" reference they can use to show current employment when seeking jobs. I can even provide "brand name services" (your supervisor contact telephone number will alert my operator to answer in the business name of your choice).

I'm going to get paid, and a bunch of terminally unemployed folk across the country will have a current "job reference." Win / win!

You're my hero. Actually, I don't even think you should've posted that; people could steal that idea. You could do all this with ZERO employees, a PO Box, and a cell phone.

Godspeed.

reply to post by Sunsetspawn


And that's how they give money to politicians anyway. Remember a 1 million donation lately ?

reply to post by schuyler


schulyer....awesome story. Thanks! Love to hear those kinds of experiences. I'm trying to strike out on my own doing residential cleaning to help my son who will be going to college in two years, well he's a PSEO student so starts this Fall, but I'm going to believe in working hard and being honest pays off. I will see. Having a four year college degree isn't a guarantee of a job anymore; I've all but given up on pursuing that avenue.

I'm not understanding why companies won't hire the "unemployed." It doesn't even make sense to me because most people who are job seekers typically are unemployed or underemployed, or so I thought.

Simple answer BOYCOTT all these companies every single one!!! I can't afford anything right now so it isn't hard for me to Boycott a given product of any given company. So this will send a message, Don't wanna employ those who have been out of work then we will not provide you suck bags with any revenue. They'll have to depend completely on foreign sales, HA good luck with that, LMAO!!! And here they are:

Allstate Insurance, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and the University of Arizona are just a few of the companies advertising that they will only hire people who already have jobs.

It's okay that first one there I banned long ago because they are major D bags anyway NEVER deal with ALLSTATE skanks!

reply to post by Chrysalis


They have it because they went after the opportunity! They do not have it because they waited around for someone else's work and efforts to pay off for them.

The does appear to be one state at least attempting to do something about it...

NEW YORK, May 19 (Reuters) - New York Democrats introduced legislation Thursday that would make it illegal for employers to disqualify out-of-work job-seekers solely because they are unemployed.

The bill would make unemployed individuals a protected class under state law, giving them the same legal protections against hiring discrimination currently afforded to other minorities and disadvantaged classes such as the physically disabled. It would also make it illegal for employers to post job listings that explicitly discourage unemployed individuals from applying.

"It is fundamentally unfair for employers to refuse to hire, or even accept applications from individuals who are out of work," said state Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

As an example, Stewart-Cousins pointed to a Craigslist ad for a building superintendent position in the Bronx that stated "You MUST currently be employed as a superintendent" to apply. That type of ad would be prohibited under the proposed legislation, she said.

Unemployment discrimination contributes to the growing problem of long-term unemployment by preventing out-of-work New Yorkers from getting back on their feet, Stewart-Cousins said. According to data released Thursday by the New York State Department of Labor, the state unemployment rate was 7.9 percent in April, down from 8.7 percent in April 2010.

The bill is sponsored in the New York Assembly by Assemblyman Keith Wright.

Senate Republicans had no immediate comment on the legislation.

Source

Of course, there are easy ways around this by stating that candidates have little or too much experience etc.

How can the unemployed get a job when there are millions of illegals willing to work for $5 an hour.? Illegals are job stealers.