Unemployed Need Not Apply – What?
The state of New Jersey has dealt with some unpleasant things in the past few weeks, with Hurricane Irene tearing up the coast and such. But, there’s something that the New Jersey Legislature had to deal with that no one saw coming – the need to pass legislation that banned the discrimination of potential employees based on their current job status.
Illinois had to pass legislation against this as well. Even though many legislators are voicing opposition to this trend, I ask you to go look at popular job sites such as CareerBuilder and Monster. The statement is on tons of job descriptions!
No wonder people who are unemployed can’t find a job; no one will hire them if they don’t have one to start with! Honestly, this irritates me. Isn’t that totally contrary to the purpose of everything that the state and federal governments have been doing in order to try and get the economy back on track? If people are unemployed, that’s a percentage of the population that isn’t able to contribute to the economy’s recovery.
The Federal Government has taken notice, and Congressmen and Senators are working on bills to ensure that potential workers cannot be discriminated against based on their current employment status. Will it work? I hope so. I’m a big proponent for the Federal and State governments having separate responsibilities, but this is something I think the Federal Government needs to step into or it’ll end up becoming like an epidemic.
Here’s my question. Why in the world would employers do this anyway? Wouldn’t you think, if you really needed employees, that you would be fine hiring people who needed a job instead of those who already had one? In my mind, there are two reasons that they could be doing this.
- To limit the number of people applying. This is the most obvious reason. Like I shared on Monday, 18% of the country is either unemployed or underemployed. That makes the pool of potential employees a lot larger than it would have been a year or so ago. Employers figure that the easiest way to fix that problem is to just eliminate 9% of the population (the percentage of people unemployed).
- To try and “encourage employee retention.” I have that in quotes for a reason. It makes sense in theory; if you get people who are currently employed, they’re more likely to stay employed, right? Maybe. You may also have job-hoppers, who end up ruining their own résumé and leaving previous employers with holes in their schedules and staffing.
It’s quite a mess, really. Employers who do this are selfish and trying to reduce the work they have to do in order to hire staff. In the long run, they’re making more work for themselves, as the probability of job-switchers being reliable is often less than those who are unemployed. For once, I’m glad the federal government is stepping in to a potentially volatile situation. Until tomorrow, spend smart, save smart!
