“Discrimination against the unemployed” reaches Portlandia
A new Oregon law forbids employers “to advertise a job opening if they won’t consider applicants who are unemployed.” [CNBC] Earlier on efforts to make jobless persons into a new protected class under discrimination laws here, here, etc.
Clearly there must be a critical shortage of laws for someone to come up with a law like this. The only thing this will accomplish is to get more business for lawyers when an unemployed person sues because he was rejected for a job. I do not know the details of the law, but on the surface I don’t see how it can work. All an employer would have to do is to schedule an interview and then reject the applicant if they don’t want to hire someone who is unemployed. Such a policy may be shortsighted on the part of the employer; how it should not be the business of the government to micromanage how a company wants to run its business. The unemployed should not be considered a protected class.
Richard, you sort of hit the nail on the head there with the “All an employer would have to do is to schedule an interview…”. Many employers are clearly stating they won’t even consider an unemployed person in the job description, hence no interviews for unemployed persons are never scheduled. Irish need not apply…
The reason this so-called discrimination occurs is because it costs money to process applicants that really don’t want jobs. They’re just there to fulfill their job search requirements for extended unemployment. This also happens heavily during the normal phase of unemployment insurance but with extended unemployment, lasting potentially for years, the cost for businesses becomes crushing. Here in MO they pay you $8.00/hour to sit on your can. If you don’t have a bunch of heavy expenses hanging over your head that is a pretty powerful incentive to not want a job. When I was single and lived at home back in the ’70’s, that’s what I did as well as anyone else I knew that was in the same position. And so it continues today. The local newspaper is full of help wanted ads and so is every newspaper across the country. There’s no way you couldn’t find a job, *any* job, over a 2 year period. So employers are supposed to disconnect their brains and not notice?
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Clearly there must be a critical shortage of laws for someone to come up with a law like this. The only thing this will accomplish is to get more business for lawyers when an unemployed person sues because he was rejected for a job. I do not know the details of the law, but on the surface I don’t see how it can work. All an employer would have to do is to schedule an interview and then reject the applicant if they don’t want to hire someone who is unemployed. Such a policy may be shortsighted on the part of the employer; how it should not be the business of the government to micromanage how a company wants to run its business. The unemployed should not be considered a protected class.
Richard, you sort of hit the nail on the head there with the “All an employer would have to do is to schedule an interview…”. Many employers are clearly stating they won’t even consider an unemployed person in the job description, hence no interviews for unemployed persons are never scheduled. Irish need not apply…
The reason this so-called discrimination occurs is because it costs money to process applicants that really don’t want jobs. They’re just there to fulfill their job search requirements for extended unemployment. This also happens heavily during the normal phase of unemployment insurance but with extended unemployment, lasting potentially for years, the cost for businesses becomes crushing. Here in MO they pay you $8.00/hour to sit on your can. If you don’t have a bunch of heavy expenses hanging over your head that is a pretty powerful incentive to not want a job. When I was single and lived at home back in the ’70’s, that’s what I did as well as anyone else I knew that was in the same position. And so it continues today. The local newspaper is full of help wanted ads and so is every newspaper across the country. There’s no way you couldn’t find a job, *any* job, over a 2 year period. So employers are supposed to disconnect their brains and not notice?