TORVIK: Mr. Gillette, what is your take on this aspect of Obama's new jobs bill proposal:
Ending Discrimination Against the Unemployed: Recent reports have highlighted companies that are increasingly expressing preferences for applicants who already have a job. Specifically, some companies are posting job listings that include language such as “unemployed candidates will not be considered” or “must be currently employed” or “must be employed within the last 6 months.” The exclusion of unemployed applicants is a troubling and arbitrary screen that is bad for the economy, bad for the unemployed, and ultimately bad for firms trying to find the best candidates. This is particularly true at a time when so many Americans have found themselves out of work through no fault of their own. New Jersey has passed legislation to address this practice, and members of Congress have also introduced legislation. The President’s plan calls for legislation that would make it unlawful to refuse to hire applicants solely because they are unemployed or to include in a job posting a provision that unemployed persons will not be considered.'I understand the sentiment, but it seems like a bit of a hornet's nest to me. Currently firms work hard not to ask questions about "suspect classifications" to prevent any claim that someone wasn't hired on such a basis. But an employer has to ask about employment history!
GILLETTE: Are you saying that the proposed claim is problematic because one can eliminate potential liability on a failure-to-hire racial discrimination claim by not asking about race (setting aside that some things, like zip codes, correlate strongly to race) but that an employer cannot similarly eliminate potential liability on a failure-to-hire- the-unemployed claim because they need to know job history? If so, I don’t really see that as a problem with the bill.
