Support in Congress Builds to End Discrimination Against Unemployed Jobseekers

Hiring policies that say applicants must “be currently employed” moved one step closer to being outlawed today as legislation was introduced in the Senate that prohibits discrimination against unemployed jobseekers.

With a bill already introduced in the House, the Fair Employment Opportunity Act of 2011 (S. 1471), sponsored by Senator Blumenthal of Connecticut with Senators Gillibrand of New York and Brown of Ohio, would bar employers and employment agencies from screening out or excluding job applicants solely because they are out of work. A recent report from the National Employment Law Project found that job listings excluding the unemployed continue to pop up by the hundreds around the country.

“Employers and staffing firms continue to post job ads that refuse to even consider the unemployed for openings, regardless of their qualifications. It’s unfair to workers, bad for the economy and profoundly disturbing to see millions of Americans deliberately excluded from jobs they desperately need. The Fair Employment Opportunity Act will help level the playing field for out-of-work Americans as we try to put the country back to work,” said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project. Owens testified on hiring discrimination against the unemployed before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) earlier this year.

As documented in NELP’s recent report, Hiring Discrimination Against the Unemployed: Federal Bill Outlaws Excluding the Unemployed from Job Opportunities, as Discriminatory Ads Persist, employers and staffing firms continue to expressly deny job opportunities to those workers hardest hit by the economic downturn, despite increased scrutiny and strong public opposition to the practice. An informal NELP survey of a number of heavily-trafficked job posting websites, including CareerBuilder.com and Indeed.com, found numerous job ads conspicuously stating that job seekers “must be currently employed.”

“A snapshot sampling of recent online job postings disclosed a large number of ads explicitly limited to those who are ‘currently employed’,” said Owens. “This perverse catch-22 requires a worker to have a job in order to get a job, and it means highly qualified, experienced workers who want and need work can’t get past the starting gate in the application process simply because they lost their jobs through no fault of their own. As a business practice, this makes no sense, and as a way to rebuild the economy, it only debilitates workers, particularly the long-term unemployed.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there are 4.7 unemployed workers for every job opening, a ratio that has been above 4-to-1 for 29 consecutive months. But when employers exclude qualified applicants based only on employment status, the job of finding a job is even tougher.

“I was absolutely stunned when I was told this by a recruiter,” said Michelle Chesney-Offutt, a 53-year-old from Illinois who suddenly found herself laid off and looking for work after 19 years as an IT help-desk supervisor. Despite receiving an initially positive response, Michelle said the recruiter told her that “he would not be able to present me for an interview due to the ‘over 6 month unemployed’ policy that his client adhered to.”

With the unemployment rate at 9.2 percent, nearly 6.3 million workers—over 44 percent of all unemployed—have been out of work for six months or longer. At the same time, average spells of unemployment continue to creep steadily upward, reaching nearly 40 weeks, or over 9 months, in June.

A recent poll conducted by Hart Research Associates found overwhelming opposition to the practice of excluding candidates from consideration for jobs simply because they are unemployed. Eighty percent of respondents described this practice as “very unfair,” with another 10 percent saying it is unfair. By a two-to-one ratio, Americans support a proposal to ban companies from refusing to hire or consider a qualified job applicant solely because the person is currently unemployed.

“Clearly, there is broad public opposition to discriminating against unemployed workers in the hiring process, and strong support for legislation to ensure that unemployed job seekers receive a fair shot at employment opportunities,” NELP’s Owens said. “We are hopeful that employers, workers and lawmakers in both parties will work together to erase this arbitrary barrier to employment and tear down the signs that say ‘the unemployed need not apply’.”