There must be something wrong with them. If they’ve been out of work for months and months, they just can’t be good employees. This is the line of reasoning being taken by some employers and job agencies that are refusing to consider any applicants who currently don’t have a job. Excluding all unemployed also makes the potential applicant pool smaller, and the hiring manager’s job a little easier. But for the long-term jobless, this news is discouraging, as the economy sputters and produces little in the way of new employment opportunities.

 

Writing in the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dan Chapman highlights a recent example in which Abacus Corporation’s Georgia office advertised a local warehouse job that included the line “If you have not worked since 2009, do not apply!” Similar restrictions have been posted in job descriptions listed by The People Place, another job recruiter.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

Outlook Poor for Long-term Unemployed (by Dan Chapman, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Disturbing Job Ads: 'The Unemployed Will Not Be Considered' (by Laura Bassett, Huffington Post)