The Help-Wanted Sign Comes With a Frustrating Asterisk

Source: New York Times

The Help-Wanted Sign Comes With a Frustrating Asterisk



The unemployed need not apply.

That is the message being broadcast by many of the nation’s employers, making it even more difficult for 14 million jobless Americans to get back to work.

Unemployed workers have long suspected that the gaping holes on their résumés left them less attractive to employers. But with the country in the worst jobs crisis since the Great Depression, many had hoped employers would be more forgiving.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/business/help-wanted-ads-exclude-the-long-term-jobless.html?_r=2&hp

A company shouldn't be allowed to decide who they want to hire based on their current employment status?
Why not?

discriminating against the unemployed? The only real solution is to create enough jobs that employers can't be so picky!

It is illegal to put "whites only" in an ad.

:eyes:

that might work

for a second, there are a few reasons that pop into my head but the biggest one is:

Unless a company completely closes shop, companies will try their absolute damnedest to keep their top performing people and move the people who are bottom of the performance stack ranking out. Being laid off is a pretty good indicator of what your last employer thought of you.

Things happen all the time that cause workers to need to shift around. Maybe a company is purchased by another company, and isn't interested in the personnel. Maybe a company has a particularly poor executive staff and makes poor decisions.

There are all sorts of scenarios where a top performing individual can get laid off.

Amazing, never knew that.

yes, there are plenty of reasons for companies to completely clean house but in my experience that is the exception rather than the rule. If a company is going to lay people off, you don't want to lay off your top performers, that'll put your company into a death spiral.

During the Great Depression, many companies went completely belly up so obviously they couldn't keep their staffs. Of those people who did have jobs, they were, more than likely, ones that were more valued.

9 million people suck at their jobs? that makes up a certain percentage of the 9 million but, again barring a complete closure of a company, exactly what criteria do you think they used when they did their lay off? I seriously doubt is was a random lottery draw.

if you work for a company, look around and honestly ask yourself: are some of your fellow employees: poor, ok, decent, good, really good or great performers? I think you'll find that somewhere in the 7-12% range are on the lower end of the performance scale and if a layoff is going to come those are the folks who, for the most part, are going to go.

If you have ever had to do a layoff then you know that this is true.

because they're out there unemployed, all of them pretty much.

guess they aren't the best.

brought to us by Wall Street and several administrations, as well as 30+ years of moving those jobs to cheaper labor markets. Are there always some inequities in work quality? Sure. Is it the proximal cause of what is going on. No, and it's arrogant and thoughtless for business to use such lies and distortions to to support their actions.

After more than a couple decades in business I know what fucking criteria they used. 1)There was a horrific drop in in demand, reducing profits, and 2)The wealthy and those who own the assets saw an opportunity to line their pockets, taking a larger and larger share of profit. In that process they are taking advantage of the 24 million unemployed, like a cancer killing its host, destroying this country and the lives of tens of millions of people. (Data for that is readily available). Those have nothing to do with employee job performance.

Is it just willfull ignorance to refuse to acknowledge all the forces that are being brought to bear against workers? I don't know. Maybe such ideas offer some balm to those who are in a position to screw people on a daily basis, and they need some sort of justification so they don't throw up when they look in a mirror.

Here one can find that, as opposed to the last recession, job growth has doubled in low-wage jobs. If it was their performance, they would have been fired and replaced with someone at the same wage. Yet during that same time salaries for top executives have increased like maggots on rotten fruit.

Booz just put out a paper that belies the idea that this had anything to do with the work or work ethic of employees -

In other words, they see employees as an expense, and nothing about their performance has value. Note that they are advising companies to reduce WORKER salaries, not management. In most cases that means the worker is fired and replaced with someone cheaper, such as is happening at GM plants, among others.

Frankly, arguments that ignore the larger forces in our society that have caused these massive job losses, that blame it on the workers, are selfish and mean-spirited, the kind of slimy rhetoric that is the favorite of those who would rather hurt the most vulnerable and protect the wealthy.

And I know, for sure, that is true.

All employees are fungible, in their view.

That's why I warn my eco students to not give their hearts to a company - they will chop them out and eat them.

As a person who's worked in the D.C. Beltway for the better part of 10 years now, I think it's funny to sit through a new hire training session and listen to the HR people tell me about how "the companies best assets are its employees" knowing that's a crock of shit and that the company will get rid of my ass as soon as I stop being profitable for them for any reason. They demand loyalty from me, but I know they will show me none.

I mostly enjoy my current job but I have no illusions about it. I give them eight hours a day of work, they give me money. If someone comes along and offers me more money and/or better benefits, I'll be giving my two weeks immediately. It may sound mercenary - it IS mercenary - but I expect that my employer would do the same.

So true, and so well said:

Frankly, arguments that ignore the larger forces in our society that have caused these massive job losses, that blame it on the workers, are selfish and mean-spirited, the kind of slimy rhetoric that is the favorite of those who would rather hurt the most vulnerable and protect the wealthy.

It's hardly ever appropriate to blame the victims, especially wholesale.

http://www.google.com/search?q=The+notion+that+good+workers+doing+valuable+work&btnG=Search&hl=en&source=hp&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

Needs to go viral, IMO.
Something like: 'Business management now being advised to 'attack paychecks' of best workers.

order:
All unmarried women.
All unmarried men.
All married women with an employed spouse.
All married men with an employed spouse.
Anyone with five years or less with the company.

Houston headquarters sent out the memo, and no exceptions were to be observed. The goal: 30% reduction in total payroll DOLLARS, not headcount. Start at the top and work down until 30% is achieved. No regard for performance whatsoever.

Looks like to me the order should be:

"All married women with an employed spouse.
All married men with an employed spouse."

BEFORE

"All unmarried women.
All unmarried men."

Because with am employed spouse, at least they have one income.

Sux however you look at it.

Clearly -- both your "solution" and the orders you're reacting to.

Yours is the EXACT argument that ALL companies, the whole damned society, used to use to keep ALL women from getting most jobs other than the low-paying ones men didn't so much want -- nurse, grade and high school teacher, maid, stenographer and typist, housekeeper, childcare, and not much more. It's also an argument that kept them out of higher education that they might have wanted (law, medicine).

As a feminist, an older feminist who remembers the bad ole days, I hate to see the argument trotted out for ANY reason whatsoever, even one that surely seems to you "merely" practical.

Both orders of layoffs suck.

As a longstanding single, childfree female, I always wondered why I was on the chopping block early? This list of priorities would explain it.

My colleague from two jobs ago with the same skills, and probably more money, is still there. And yes, she's married with children.

I'm getting remarried in the next year. It will be enlightening to see if my lay off ability has changed.

Maybe I need kids as a buffer?

some years ago in retaliation for looking for a job in another part of the company. Additionally, the person who stayed had already threatened them with an ADA lawsuit because of some comments they had written in her performance appraisal. I have no idea who was the better employee, I'd say we were about equal. However, I never stood a chance.

I know, and please know that I didn't originate it nor endorse it, but that's the way it was.

The dumbest part of all this is that there is more work needed to be done than can ever be done with everyone working around the clock. But since much of it isn't monetized, we have "unemployment."

How 'bout "the whole damn department" or "branch" or "division" is being shipped to India.

Our good, decent, good-paying, CLEAN, high tech and medium tech American middle class jobs by the MILLIONS were shipped overseas in the 90s and 2000s -- had nothing whatsoever to do with the "performance" of those who found themselves suddenly jobless. And for those jobs that miraculously stay here, H1B visas have brought much less well-paid foreign workers in and decimated the salary structures for jobs Americans had done well on.

And don't forget the illegal but nearly unprovable and shockingly wide-spread practice of letting go experienced older, more expensive workers in favor of young warriors who won't see those wages ever, probably, if corporate America gets its way. I'ts not performance of the workers but greed of the corporations at work there too.

Sure, some people are unemployed as a result of their own inadequacies -- but not millions and millions of them. And any corporation that uses that as a reason not to even consider a resume or application is un-American in my book, certainly not interested in helping the economy improve. It's just elitist and wrong.

and there was NO EXCEPTION MADE for "top" performers. Many of them were experts with Ph.D.s in particular fields, and they were sent packing with the secretaries, regardless of tenure or "performance." You can delude yourself that the world, and Capital (Marxism 101), operate in rational, fair ways, but this is a truly sad misconception. It's frankly shocking for a member of this community to be so naive.

I am also rather shocked that you put yourself in the position of judging millions of American workers because you do some hiring work for some company. Please, display some humility. My husband and I are in our thirties with advanced degrees, and we have seen this stuff happen time and again. Yet you apparently have only witnessed the just termination of "lesser" workers in certain contexts, from which you extrapolate to the masses. (!)

last hired, first laid off. Anything else has to be a termination not a layoff. Caused me a major headache when I tried to do otherwise.

or even most, just plain deserved it. If they were that bad, they wouldn't have kept their jobs UNTIL then. There's no excuse for trying to justify any stigmatization of the jobless. Almost all, in an economy like this, are innocent victims.

It's not that they sucked. They just weren't the best.

and not even a very good worker.

And if a boss can't see that someone is just an ass-kisser instead of a useful employee, its no wonder his business is failing.

ass-kiss.

of situations that don't necessarily even involve my own interests, I can say I don't have a lot of confidence in most organzations' ability to know who their best emplyees are. Maybe in sales or something where numbers are king, but otherwise I find them mindbogglingly unaware of what goes on and who does what.

Not to mention the fact that what gets rewarded may not be what's actually in the best interests of the company. Plenty of organizations stumble along for years managing to keep their heads above water or even prosper despite incredible ineptitude.

Absolutely nail dead on.

I've marveled at American companies -- it seems that once they reach a certain size (and I have no idea what that is) -- they almost can't do anything that harms them enough that they have to close. I've seen waste, fraud, abuse, unbelievably poor management decisions, all sorts of corporate sins, and none of it hurts them a bit.

bosses LOVE it when you stroke their ego. Unusually they aren't the top performers either. Just better at aforementioned ass kissing and backstabbing.

Of course, I got laid off. I don't kiss ass. Unless I'm sleeping with the person, then it has a different meaning.

i'm sure there are lots of high performing people that leave jobs due to bad managers. this "must be employed" policy stinks to high heaven!

their own pink slips soon. Then let's see how you reflect on the unfairness of it all. You've been added to my ignore list.

I don't agree with the thinking either, but that really does explain a lot.

of us are preparing for war, and nothing must detract from the resoluteness of that endeavor.

It shows what a real mess this country is in when a DU member blathers on in apparent good faith about the "just" terminations of millions of American workers.

people are not be as easily tomstoned? I think the admins are allowing people to speak more freely in this time of great crisis. The poster in question will be neutralized by his/her own actions. We have to stand together for the great tribulation come toward us.

so that he could keep his health insurance. He works at a union shop and their layoffs were done based on seniority. Since a lot of the people working there had more seniority than him, he knew it would be smarter to take the voluntary layoff.

with that broad conclusion.

I was working at IBM in 2008, but at the location where they hired me, they could only bring me in as a subcontractor because of various rules they had. They wanted me as an FTE, I wanted to be an FTE. Later that year, they laid off all contractors across the board. My manager begged to keep me or hire me or something but couldn't make it happen.

Long story short, I wasn't hired again until March 2010, but since then I have hit all of the top marks at my new company, including the highest pay raise in the company and one of the biggest bonuses (but I worked very hard to get that).

But by your hiring standards, I am a substandard employee.

Good to know.

BTW, I've hired 5 people into my group at my new company and I never even ask about current employment status. If anything, I feel more obligated to look very closely at those who are currently OUT OF WORK because many, like I was, are unemployed through no fault of their own AND they will, like me, be grateful for the opportunity to show what they can do.

But that's just me.

This is a very inaccurate and ignorant comment. I've been laid off three times in my 35 years of employment--twice because the company I worked for was part of a merger/acquisition. In these two cases performance had nothing to do with the several hundred employees who were laid off. The third layoff was because my boss was an idiot--it had nothing to do with performance.

...completely closing shop?

Because with it comes money

Unless a company completely closes shop, companies will try their absolute damnedest to keep their top performing people and move the people who are bottom of the performance stack ranking out. Being laid off is a pretty good indicator of what your last employer thought of you.

My experience is that employee costs are the biggest factor when deciding who is retained and who is let go. It has little to do with the actual performance of the employee.

My experience is that employee costs are the biggest factor when deciding who is retained and who is let go. It has little to do with the actual performance of the employee.

That is almost entirely dependent upon if you are a cost center or a profit center.

Profit centers are driven by exactly that: profit. if you are a top producer in a profit center then the company will do it's best to keep you.

In a cost center, the reverse can be true. if someone who can do your job as good as you for 75% pay, then you should be worried.

some sort of default thinking about corporate culture to judge candidates.

Yes, in theory, top producers in profit centers should be retained and low cost employees in cost centers should be worried, but I am telling you that I've seen corporate cultures that turn this theory on it head.

I've seen cultures retain high cost employees in cost centers and let go of top producers in profit centers.

I'll give you a famous example, Ross Perot. Ross Perot was a top salesman at IBM. He was so good that he became the highest paid employee at IBM because he far exceeded his sales quota. IBM moved him out of his position because he made more than the CEO.

I've seen plenty of managers retain incompetent employees because it meant job security for them.

For example, when my husband's company made their last few rounds of layoffs two factors were used to determine who stayed and who went.

1) People whose jobs were billable to the customer had a higher chance of retaining their position.

EXCEPTION

2) People whose jobs were the result of nepotism, childhood friendship or church membership with the GM had a higher chance of retaining their position.

One thing I have pretty much figured out besides companies all have their own criteria for layoffs is that depressingly few of them actually make the decisions based on sound business need. At least that's what I've seen and granted I do not have knowledge of ALL companies.

Sometimes the layoff decision was based on who cost the company more rather than who was the best performer. Sometimes the layoff decision was because of relocation of the job category. Sometimes the layoff decision was based on a personality conflict between manager and employee where the manager was impossible.

On the flip side, those who have jobs may simply be good at getting in companies where layoffs haven't occurred.

It's a perfectly idiotic way to size a candidate.

...personality differences.

That's not putting your good management cap on!! A good hiring manager should know that the same person becomes an outstanding employee under another personality type.

That's old style thinking. Those type of hiring managers should be replaced too!

As a manager I get more output than expected from many who have been previously fired or laid off. When a new hired person has been pounded down because of bad experiences, I have found it easy to motivate everyone of them......they can learn how to fly !!! You have to realize they can't be just like you. Unique people; which they are, bring great ideas to the table.

Nice post.

and yes, poor hiring managers should be replaced.

Leaving the cockroaches who all gang together to keep their miserable lives going to the very last minute. I have direct experience of this from at least three companies that I've worked for that went under for various reasons.

my husband's company were the useless managers who had failed to secure contracts that would have kept the place going. They were rewarded with transfers to other divisions. All of the remainder of the staff - the ones who did the actual work - were let go. I totally agree with your observation.

My husband, a kick-ass computer software guy, was let go - along with a couple of hundred others - when an entire division of his company was shut down. He was 59 at the time and had a hell of a time locating something else. It had nothing to do with his performance.

The blanket statement you made is very uninformed.

In a previous recession I was let go from a staff of 5 where I was the manager's top assistant. I was told afterwards, from a friend of the manager's wife, that I drew the lucky straw because I was a single female, with no mortgage payments to make or children to support. Since then I've gone onto national recognition in my field while most of my former co-workers are no longer in the business. There's also a "Survivor" factor: insecure managers will let go of their biggest threats.

Companies have discovered that the people with the most experience and time with the company, the most loyal and skilled employees in other words, have been given raises over time and are making more money than a new hire from a godawfully desperate labor market that you can pay minimum wage.

Firings target one of two groups of people: The ones I mentioned that have been there the longest and are making the most money, or the newest hires if the company uses seniority. Productivity is very rarely taken into account.

But yes, that does sound like hiring manager "logic".

environment that goes by senority...or if the place of employment completely shut down and everyone was let go. Or if a complete department was shut down and no positions left in rest of company.

because of the credit crisis our customers couldn't get credit to purchase our products...........so your statement is not accurate.
We would would rather hire someone who was unemployed rather look at an applicant who was employed. Being at a company and looking for another job was a red flag, unless there were credible reasons, like a company closing soon.
If we hired someone who was employed and they didn't work out, we felt it made us more liable. They could say they left a job for us and ...blah blah blah

I was laid off from a job of eight years ( as well as several others ) and I know for a fact it wasn't because of my performance, but because the new managing director was cutting costs where they didn't even make sense. They had brought on part-timers who wouldn't get benefits, but at the same time they couldn't keep any help because nobody can survive on those hours. I still hear from people I worked with, and they tell me the office I worked in has gone down the shitter.

He was observing that being laid off or otherwise unemployed for an extended period gives hiring managers THE EXCUSE TO ASSUME that you were not a valuable or high-performing worker at your last employer.

And why would they want to assume that? Simple: it's easy.

Let's face it: hiring managers still have their regular jobs to do, so this is a defensible way to weed a bunch of applications out of the huge stack that hits the inbox for each and every job opening during tough economic times.

======================

well payed, experienced employees often get the axe.

Yes some companies even regularly layoff what they consider the bottom X% of workers but there are many other reasons including simply saving money. When I was laid off is a perfect example. I had worked for the same company for 15+ years on their in-house programming staff. They chose to switch to the SAP enterprise resource planning system and as much as I resented it at the time it made financial sense for them to layoff the older higher paid workers that would have had to be trained on the new system and bring in younger, cheaper workers from the local college that had already been using SAP. Only one programmer from the original staff ended up staying and that person had a special circumstance that would have made it hard for him to make the same money somewhere else. That's just one example. Another gap in my resume was that I tried to start my own business but when the economy crashed I saw that my venture was not going to be able to pay the bills and reentered the job market at an obviously bad time to find a job. So now I have been officially unemployed/underemployed for 3+ years and am still trying to find full time employment.

As a former manager, I helped hire plenty of people who had been out of work for some time. Some of the best workers, imho. People who wanted a job, needed a job and busted their asses at it.

There are people that want to pick their jobs and are not interested in changing fields, so their sitting and waiting on their job to come open. I would be more interested in a person that took a lesser paying job and is trying to survive than someone that just sat on their can and waited. Forty years ago a friend had a neighbor that he was trying to get a bunch of us to chip in and help the guy get food stamps because he wasn't working. I suggested to my friend, you know a lot of people find him two jobs, if he takes one of them I'll chip in some money, if he doesn't take the job offered I'll give nothing. He would not take the jobs.

if I had to lay off people I would definitely keep the BEST people working for me.

Companies are looking for the best people and are stealing talent from other companies.

The corporate rat race sucks the life out of people and discards them. They care not for how someone might perform, in the long run.

you have 2 employees:

Bob and Sally

Sally makes 2x what Bob makes.

Using your calculation, Sally is in deep trouble.

Unless of course you factor in productivity:

Sally outproduces Bob by 3.5x.

Lay off Sally or Bob?

Additional factors:

- relationships: if Sally is in a customer contact position and has positive contacts with 85% of your customer base. What happens if you lay her off? Will that cost you any customers? if so, how many and which ones?

- Flexibility - Sally (or for that matter Bob) might be able to fill more than one role in the organization. So while Bob may not outproduce Sally, he may be able to fill another role (let's say office manager) so the productivity #s may be weighted differently and Sally might be in jeopardy or some other person on the org may be.

Hiring, maintaining and growing a business is a complex dance influenced by a lot more factors than can be encompassed in a simple one or two sentence perception.

My 59 year old husband was laid off and out scrounging for a job last year. He attended several hiring fairs for positions in his field and had more than one hiring manager tell him they were only looking at "recent college graduates" to fill available positions - translation "inexperienced people who will work for less."

What this fails to take into account, of course, is that the actual work probably requires a lot of experience and expertise that the newbies don't yet have, and that the product or service ultimately will suffer as a result.

hardest have the most incompetent management.

And sometimes it's all politics.

But the BEST people will recognize you for the asshole you are and find that better company.

i fear for this country's future/

don't pretend otherwise

I ran a business many years doing backoffice insourcing for retailers, mostly custom POS and inventory control software development. I would have never hired an employee who hadn't written any code in a few years. The industry changes very rapidly, and it's important to hire employees with a current skillset.

If I were looking for a web application developer to work on a modern enterprise project needing experience with PHP, Varnish, and Cassandra, I wouldn't hire someone who had been employed for two years. The odds that they're current on those platforms in a working environment is virtually nil.

It's an example specific to my own industry, but it's a valid example nonetheless (and we can't tell what kind of jobs are being advertised in the OP screenshots). This is why I tell my students to NEVER allow their skills to become stale. If you can't find a job, contribute to an open source project, put freebie apps together for nonprofits, or do SOMETHING to demonstrate that your skills are still current. I have a student right now who is juggling an online startup with his studies. He's already admitted that the company isn't going to go anywhere (the idea is a bit dumb), but once he finishes his degree he'll be out the gate with the kinds of current hands-on experience that employers will want to see.

Like everything else in life this is not a black and white issue. Jobs and industries vary greatly. It does make a difference if the ad is for an auto mechanic, secretary, software engineer, financial analyst, teacher, sales person or charter boat captain. Hiring managers do not all have the same criteria for the positions they fill, even within the same company. I see a lot of conclusion jumping going on.

than a year or two -- with rare exceptions). But of course this attitude prevents talented academics who have had to leave their positions as adjuncts or even tenure-trackers for various real-life reasons (taking care of an ill parent or child or spouse and many other examples of outside pressures I have heard of before) from returning to their fields.

maybe they should start advertising, minorities, women need not apply as well? I mean, it is the employer's right to do so, right?

an employer cannot list that on their help wanted ads.

unemployment, unlike sex, race, color, marital status or creed, is not a protected class so it does meet the legal requirement for a discrimination claim.

...unemployed people are not a protected class. Women and minorities are.
Employers can say they will only hire non-smokers. Smokers are not a protected class.

According to you an employer should be able to hire whoever they want.

:think:

:puke:

Anyone who believes that a company will show him/her special loyalty just has no idea how the real world works.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

and because "current employment" has NO determination on one's ability to do a job, especially in an economic down cycle.

Fucking corporate rights bullshit, get it the fuck outta my face.

Is that clear enough?

and is therefore discrimination.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=790443&mesg_id=790443

More states need to follow suit, and make the laws tougher as well (the NJ law only bars placing this restriction in an ad).

So what if a company chooses to hire someone away from a job elsewhere? Now there's an opening for that other job! One way or another, a job opening means that an unemployed person will be hired.

good example of the employment woes in the US.

(though not to be argumentative)

I think these ads are a very real sign of the times. Such language has only become common in the very recent past. Likewise, it will disappear when and if the economy strengthens.

Also, excluding the unemployed is not a real requirement. Anyone bright enough to get the job will find the right way to explain their current circumstances.

This is more of a reflection of the cultural message at large.

Does it demonstrate the hard times being felt? I would say yes, because the lack of employment in the US today is the result of a demand shortage. People in the US aren't buying because they don't have enough money. They don't have enough money because there aren't enough jobs providing money to people.

During such a vicious cycle as we're in, the employer position would be to vilify the unemployed as being lazy and not contributing to their profits. Thus, the unemployed goes from not only being laid off in the first place, but then being cast as a pariah.

Yes, I think it's a good example of the current unemployment woes in the US.

Peace

what kind of job is being offered? It may be one that has constant changes and requires the employee
to stay up to date.

Worst case scenario, they poach an employee from another company (that employee gets an upgrade in pay or benefits or he wouldn't make the change) and the poached company (hopefully) hires an umemployed worker.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

many had hoped employers would be more forgiving.

Is that a sort of "parent / child" reference? Or maybe a "priest / parishioner" reference?

Why should anyone need to ask forgiveness for living without a job for any length of time?

THAT's the story here. Not that the "unemployed" (known as job-seekers in better times) are very sorry for having been without a job making them subservient to corporate overlords!

more tolerant. Here's Webster's definition:

allowing room for error or weakness <designed to be a forgiving tennis racquet>
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forgiving

a person with a forgiving nature

I can always appreciate a good discussion of semantics.

First we must define the situation. We're reading a news report about unemployment - a report generated by a major corporation. Their writer is very aware of nuance in language.

You propose that the meaning attributed should be that an employer needs to be forgiving like a tennis racket for an amateur needs to be forgiving. I have no doubt that, if asked, the news outlet would agree with you. But, this belies the reality that the word has multiple meanings and connotations. The reality is that you chose the second possible definition for the word, but the first also applies.

The first definition webster gave was "willing or able to forgive." Let's remember that webster lists definitions in their order of prominence in usage. So, the likelihood that people will at a minimum connote the first definition increases.

Why is that important? Because the first definition makes the emphasis be the verb. Forgive, also defined by webster, is "to cease to feel resentment for." That's the first definition. The implication here is that unemployed people should stop resenting their employers.

A person may easily read the phrase this way. More importantly, I believe the authors of these articles understand very well the semantic issue at hand.

So, while you're free to believe that the article had no malicious intent in the way it was crafted so as to make the unemployed seem unrepentant toward their masters, I believe the news outlet has their own interests at heart rather than that of the public at large.

Peace

Same as the poor or any other "afflicted" member of society -- they must have done something "bad" to be in the position they are in (just look at the person in this thread arguing that only bad employees get laid off).

I don't understand.

for one possible explanation

you filter out the unemployed because they are worse (perhaps as people too) than the employed?

you actually seem proud of this observation.

i live in the Bay Area where whole sectors have simply disappeared leaving all their workers unemployed for a time (Aerospace, Hi Tech sectors, etc.). the idea that you sit in judgement of them and justify putting them all in an unemployment ghetto makes you sound like a very amoral person.

makes a person less desirable for employment in your eyes?

I was one of the very last in a lay off of 500 people. Does that make me less desirable? My supervisor wanted to keep me but HR stated that it was the last 500 hired. I worked for the company for a couple of years, had outstanding evaluations, never called in, never had even a hint of a disciplinary action. Still less desirable?

What if I also told you that 6 months later every last one of us received a letter in the mail stating that we would not be brought back and that the next day we all received another letter inviting us to reapply for our jobs at a mass hiring in two weeks?

In your mind just the idea of a lay off is all that matters. It doesn't matter that the lay off was designed to hire people in at a much lower rate of pay, even if it meant losing not one but two government contracts during that time due to poor quality and not making deadlines.

you're married?

I find married men repulsive sexually when they come on to me. Really. No joke. I see them as trash.

"If you're so good, you'd have a job already." Many women seem to express the same attitude:

"Unknown to the participants, everyone was offered a fictitious candidate partner who had been tailored to match their interests exactly. The photograph of "Mr Right" was the same for all women participants, as was that of the ideal women presented to the men. Half the participants were told their ideal mate was single, and the other half that he or she was already in a romantic relationship.

"Everything was the same across all participants, except whether their ideal mate was already attached or not," says Burkley.

The most striking result was in the responses of single women. Offered a single man, 59 per cent were interested in pursuing a relationship. But when he was attached, 90 per cent said they were up for the chase."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17619-its-true-all-the-taken-men-are-best.html

That's empirical. I have anecdotal evidence as well, but it's probably because my wife is better at noticing when women are interested in me than I am. Or maybe she's just paranoid.

basically saying that some companies want to hire a trained person.
In some professions if you are out of work for 6 months you will be hopelessly behind.

Experienced people have lost their jobs due to the economy.

we can only guess as to the reason.

might have taken additional training and now are more qualified for the position.

It's not uncommon for an unemployed person to take additional training courses to make themselves more marketable.

I'm the lazy employee who doesn't get anything done.

I've always missed deadlines.

I never took on projects to showcase my skills.

I never won awards or recognition for my talents.

I never "took one for the team" and ponied up to do something that was way out of my job description.

I was always late.

I caused friction between me and my colleagues.

I never got along with Mgmt.

Yes, I did all of that.

That's why I've been deservedly unemployed for three years. Employers are right. They don't want me.

but I'm beginning to revile corporate america.

It confirms what I believed already anyway. I was laid off 10 months ago when my firm lost their biggest client. Those of us who spent time working on that client's files were let go. They lost the client because of politics-A new person was given the job there of doling out the work contracts when our contact had a stroke and then retired. Of course the new guy chose to give the work to firms he wanted, not those from the person before him. So that left us out in the dust.

They tried at first to keep us but there was not enough work to go around on the remaining files AND we would need retraining on the databases of the other clients so we were gone shortly after.

Its hard to get this across on a resume/cover letter-that I was let go through no fault of my own. And so after 10 months no interviews whatsoever. This article makes me feel even more down to be honest. I read about people leaving the workforce entirely-giving up. I don't get that honestly because for me that means homelessness I guess.

My partner works for a big corp, but she doesn't a$$ kiss and isn't a repuke. This corp is setup to get rid of 1-2 people every year in each department. Right now we are playing the waiting game for when she will be fired. It's only a matter of time, because even though my partner is a top performer, she isn't friends with many of the idiots who work there (and should be the ones fired) and there is a lot of cronyism in her department (and company). She is also one of the longest employed at that company. I know some people will ask why she doesn't leave and look for something better. The problem is that we live in a smaller town and there aren't a lot of options. Plus, where would we go? Company's aren't hiring.

In any event companies are making record profits these days but are sitting on their cash. Here we sit with over 9% unemployment and yet they want to hire from the ranks of the already working? Just pisses me off...

You play by the rules and get the job done and more, but they don't like you "for some reason." Bam, you're gone.

Welcome to DU. :hi:

Great first post.

Best wishes for your situation. I have known very talented people in positions like the one you describe,

unemployed receive a tax break if and only if a corporation hires them and keeps them employed for a year....

A nice little Internet site that lists all the companies issuing these exclusions. Perhaps -- an App? Or a Wiki that could be updated by people across the nation when they see such ads? Unfortunately I don't know how to create an App. Maybe some savvy unemployed IT persons could spend his/her time on one.

I'm thinking of ways to pump this that takes pressure off the unemployed and back onto the companies.

:thumbsup:

An updatable App would be the sensible way to go. Most people think of their phones as necessities these days. But anyone wishing to name/shame a company could add a name.

Edit: Upon further pondering. I think you would have to have a way to verify if a company is doing this. Otherwise, it could be dismissed as internet gossip. Perhaps if two people reported the same outcome from the same company?

...that the unemployed should avoid. How does that help?

Like not patronizing them, not eating their burgers, hiring them for services and products - basically solidarity. Spreading the word.

I know of one business owner who justified it thusly: "Everything else being the same, I want to take somebody good away from my competition to hurt them".

And I think there is an ethos, also, that says I'd rather hire someone who is working at a crummy job far 'beneath' them, cleaning toilets or flipping burgers, than someone who will *only* take a 'professional' position; I assume this to be the case and will gladly work a crap job while looking for a good one.

It's really no different than age discrimination (although theoretically age discrimination is illegal); your only hope is to have a valid explanation- doing contract work volunteering or going back to renew your job skills.

But it has been harder to get a job if you don't already have one for as long as I've been in the work force, and I'm nearly 50.

I care about whether they can actually do the damn job. We have to be staffed nearly 24/7. I need people who can work independently and perform their assigned tasks.

I've seen resumes and interviewed people with no gaps in their employment history, and after two questions, I knew immediately that they would not be able to do the job.

We live in a world with very lazy, unintelligent management who use these stupid rules of thumb to guide their management decisions.

that makes you one of the good ones and rarer than a unicorn. My hat's off to you.

edit: I've worked my entire career for "mgmt" that didn't know anything about my profession.

I hire folks purely based on their ability to do the job and grow into doing more. I don't care about their age, gaps, or anything else.

I've gotten good at identifying talent from the bullshit artists. I don't need my ass kissed. I need my tasks done.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Companies need to be "incentive-ized" to compete against EACH OTHER. Otherwise, when they get this fat and powerful, they wind up with a HUGE advantage at sticking it to the worker.

My friends down in Dallas are hiring. With them, it's whether or not you are honest and
can do the job that counts, and not what your current employment status is. They are not
idiots, and know full well how many sane, smart qualified people can't find work these days.

On the other hand, in New York, me elder daughter was in a bad way when her first employer went under.
All the jobs in her field "required" 3 years minimum experience, and she had just been out of college for
one year. One company decided to take a chance on her anyway, and she has now been there 2 years. Suddenly
head-hunters from companies that wouldn't give her the time of day while she was unemployed are calling
her to try to recruit her away.

I'm probably within 15 years of retirement (or expiring, whichever comes first), and have worked for the
same outfit for 36 years, so I don't care, but my heart goes out to anyone, of any age, looking for work
in America these days.

Too funny.

of people who were eventually terminated by being setup beforehand, b/c management found out that they had "happy feet" and were looking to get out of the business that they worked for. The business placed ads in the newspaper and/or online w/o revealing their company's name, describing the job qualifications that could be met by some/many of their own employees, one or two who then took the bait, and responded to the advertisement.

although it was not a setup. The real estate para legal was not happy with his current job. It so happens that the shit firm I worked for placed an ad on craigslist for a real estate para legal who would be doing something else-it was not placed to replace the aforementioned guy.

Well the paralegal applied for the job not knowing he was applying to his own firm and got busted. I was in the room when he was called in to answer for this. He tried to make a joke out of it and was not fired but man I started sweating on his behalf in that room.

So after that when I was job hunting while working at the shit firm I was careful to never apply to anything on craigslist that did not mention the firm name. lol

He had been with his company for ten years and had been in line yet again for another promotion, which he didn't receive. (It went to a relative.) His wife saw the ad and encouraged him to apply. He sent in his resume electronically, which is what they requested.

The next day he was called in to his supervisor's office and terminated.

For a couple years now. My friends all have been "employed with me" and "I am sorry to see them go". :LOL: ALL have Jobs now.

It may not be the most ideal or powerful way to fight back, but it's better than waiting for the 'trickle down' to occur.

There are lot companies, in fact entire industries, that want high turn over for the employees. I work for law firms, and in this industry all support staff have gaps and multiple employers on their resume. That's just the nature of the work.

If I didn't move around, my only job skill would be filing pleadings which is now completely obsolete.

Please do not kid yourself. You may be employed, but that is not because you are "the best employee". You are being retained because no software nor cheaper worker is available right now to take your job.

Also, understand that your corporation is spending thousands of dollars hiring consultants looking for a way to displace you.

I am sorry to tell you this: You are not special. What you do for a living can, and will be, replaced by technology or a cheaper worker

+1...this is the absolute truth--In the corporate world absolutely no one and I mean no one is indispensable

what a hoot.

I have seen it over and over again, and I am in my mid thirties -- I have seen it happen to several people who worked for small family companies, who were turned out on their arses despite the fact that they were considered to be among the most valued and loyal employees. I have seen it happen to people in federal jobs (replaced by younger and less expensive workers), faculty members at good colleges.

Basic Marxism -- Capital will always protect its own interests and has no true loyalty to Labor (only pieces of the machine).

In the old days guys got a gold watch and were sent off into their twilight years after the company or factory had chewed them up. There is a good scene showing this in the film Revolutionary Road, which is set in the late 1950s. In the scene, Leonardo DiCaprio has dinner with one of the heads of the company. DiCaprio mentions that his father gave his life to the same company, and wonders if the boss remembers his father. Of course the boss doesn't remember the father, at all, but feigns sympathy and interest since DiCaprio's character has come up with an idea that might make money.

Things have only gotten worse for the worker.

How is anyone who has been unemployed for any length of time supposed to get a new job when companies are openly advertising for people who have jobs and are looking for a change? This story is a tie-in to the New York Times piece.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/job-listings-unemployed-not-apply-133143362.html

"Hundreds of job opening listings posted on Monster.com and other jobs sites explicitly state that people who are unemployed would be less attractive applicants, with some telling the long-term unemployed to not even bother with applying."

""I feel like I am being shunned by our entire society," Kelly Wiedemer, an unemployed information technology specialist, told the Times."

..

If they aren't going to hire the unemployed I personally am glad they aren't wasting peoples time going there just to have a resume and app thrown in the garbage.

I think they are idiots for blinding themselves to possibly their best applicants.

Instead of giving a "payroll tax holiday" to everyone, whether they need it or not, why not give that holiday only to those who will hire the longer term unemployed? One month of payroll tax holiday for the employer for every month that worker's been out of a job. That would even up the playing field a bit.

Name one person willing to do anything for the unemployed these days.

Even during the Reagan years, there was a Targeted Jobs Tax Credit. I really think it helped get us out of that recession.

company that advertises this.

This is overt discrimination against a group, most of them are unemployed through no fault of their own.

Companies want to hire the best people they can find. If they had unlimited time and resources, they'd do an exhaustive search and interview everyone available. But not having such time, they look for shortcuts. Usually these shortcuts are things like your resume, your grades, your references, etc. Now they've decided that by and large, that someone who's employed is probably a better candidate than someone who's not.

Is it an accurate assumption in a general sense? Probably.
Is it an accurate assumption on an individual level? Obviously not. Especially in times like these, lots of qualified people will be unemployed due to circumstances beyond their control. But companies most likely think that these days, they can afford to be picky.

I happen to think it's unfair, but it's not hard to figure out why employers are acting that way.

is that in some sectors people go on the job market to get raises and promotions. My boss loves me but there have been no raises here for 3 or more years. If I got another offer for a bit more money I could take that offer to my boss and get a raise/promotion. Company just wasted a bunch of time weeding me out, interviewing me, negotiating me - all for nothing. And because it is complete standard in my field it would never be held against me. If my spouse (works at the same place) did the same thing he could go back and forth in a offer/counter-offer fight.

In a few cases - a VERY few cases - the job actually requires job skills that age quickly. Unfortunately, the few people who have this sort of job seem to think that everyone else does, or ought to.

In the large majority of cases, what someone has demonstrated by staying employed when many others of equal ability haven't, is the ability to play office politics or just plain suck up to management. In the most general case, if you still have a job now, you're probably better at sucking up than someone who has already lost theirs.

This is at least as valuable as "skills", which are often relatively trivial to acquire in a new job.

this is the perfect reason.

Plain and simple they don't want to hire experienced people. It's a way to save money, by hiring young people who are cheeper, or import someone from Europe or India, still they pay them less. This capitalistic system is here to exploit you.

The real Disturbing part is that they are now mainly looking for interns.
People should learn the difference between an intern and an apprentice. If you went to school and paid money, for your education, you should not work for free.
Most schools give you an internship before you graduate so there is no need to go work again, for free.

Have faith in yourself, find your unique talent and create your own business. Start small if you must, take advantage of technology, find a way to work from home.
Be the master of your own destiny.
I live in NYC, after work I went to Wholefoods to get some organic milk for my morning coffee, I had to make my way to the back of the store and then have to wait on that long line,
It seemed like an eternity. While waiting on line I had an Idea that if there was a person with a small food cart or van selling organic milk, yogurt, and so on, I would have preferred, just to stop and get it from them, because it would just be faster even if they charged a bit more (not like Wholefoods was cheeper).

There are a lot of Food trucks popping up everywhere in NYC, theres are all mini restaurants, mini businesses. People who are creating their own jobs and not working for someone else, making their own hours. Long ago we had food markets with each individual selling their own products, on their own terms. Now we let some big corporation, hire us and boss us around, taking away our freedom. This is the same for, farmers, butchers, chefs, designers, actors, and other professions. Create your own business and we the people will not be subjected to this type of manipulation. Our main goal, is to ultimately have your own company. Never give your whole life to a company.
We all need to find our way out of this rat race.

Have you guys noticed that, with all the unemployment, we are working longer hours.
When you go to any drug store, market, bank, postoffice, DMV and so on, there is this long, long, line. No one is their to help you. ( I live in NYC)
People at electronic stores such as Radio Shack don't know anything about, the products.
That means that the "JOB CREATORS" don't want to hire, and the ones they do hire are inexperience, in order to maximize there profits

This is obscene. I don't know what else to say.

I have been unemployed for over a year. I moved from one area of the country to another in the hope of finding a employment. I guess I should just curl up in a little ball and die because I am not worthy of being employed. I am not the best, I have been out of work for over 6 months which makes me lazy with no skills. :cry: :cry: It is times like these I wish I wasn't an American. I am not proud of my country at the moment.

a website helps, too (see sig line)