An Internet hub with domestic and international news, analysis, original reporting, and popular features from the left, center, indies, centrists, moderates, and right
Is it unethical for employers to demand applicants be currently employed?
These reports that job openings are increasingly requiring applicants to be currently employed are depressing but at least somewhat rational.
For some industries, hiring talent is a buyer’s market and employers are likely being bombarded with hundreds of applications from people applying to every job that opens. If the government steps in and says you can’t hire based on these qualifications, what’s next? Will the government be able to step in and require that employers not demand prior experience for applicants because it discriminates against people who have been chronically unemployed?
Simon Owens is a PR consultant and journalist. You can read his blog, follow him on Twitter, or email him at simon.bloggasm@gmail.com
16 Responses to “Is it unethical for employers to demand applicants be currently employed?”
Yes. Possible discrimination issue plus could be ageism in practice often, too, I suspect.
I do not think it is unethical but being unemployed and carpet bombing resumes I can say that it sucks.
The only thing that people want to hire less than someone unemployed seems to be a fresh college grad and I even have a BS instead of a BA…acckkkk!
MSF, you should see how bad it gets when it stacks with age discrimination.
But I think discriminating against the unemployed is self-destructive. These are people who will stay and be loyal and work hard because they will be less likely to want to risk quitting or changing jobs. Those who are just being hired away from another company will naturally believe that the next offer 6 months later is even better, so they will just churn through jobs.
It’s unseemly, but I don’t think it’s unethical.
Business ethics comes to “doing right” by their constituencies, which are:
– their shareholders
– their employees
– their customers
– the communities in which they operate.
I don’t see that companies have a responsibility to the unemployed.
I’m with Logan (shock! awe!) however. I think his point is spot-on.
LP-That is becoming a growing fear of mine now that I am headed toward my 40′s while I debate if I do not find a job do I double down and get a MS while I wait and take out another 10k in loans or do I sit on what I have and hope it is still worth something once a company takes interest. I fully support the decisions behind it but with a tech degree if I wait to long without work in the industry it becomes a generic degree and all that money and time and effort was utterly wasted.
I can tell you, I got my JD last May, and I am licensed in New York. Nobody is hiring newly minted grads. I’m seriously thinking about going back and getting an MBA so I can go into the banking industry, because they actually will hire.
“It’s unseemly, but I don’t think it’s unethical…. Business ethics comes to “doing right” by their constituencies, which are:
…
– the communities in which they operate.
I don’t see that companies have a responsibility to the unemployed.”
I don’t follow. You said that business ethics is doing right by the communities they operate in. Isn’t part of “doing right” and helping build a strong community mean employing people? Even people who may have been laid off because their former employer went bankrupt?
The way you word it, “I don’t see that companies have a responsibility to the unemployed.” Makes it sound as though the unemployed are standing around asking for handouts.
Yes, I think it is unethical for employers to demand that applicants be employed. In fact the linked article suggested that a lot of the job posting were by “other people” (recruiters) and the actual companies themselves were not happy with the ads.
I agree with Logan…completely self-destructive behavior. Not only is loyalty an issue, but why cut yourself off from a major part of the talent pool? Sure, your HR people will have to do more sifting, but that is their job.
Because what’s left is more than deep enough and it makes the fishing that much easier.
What the hell does, “currently employed”, have to do with qualifications?
The President should tell business to go _____ itself and eliminate this ridiculous bigotry.
Yes, of course he should.
He must also force companies to hire more people.
He needs to fire all those bad managers while he’s at it.
Why hasn’t he done something about those ridiculous cell phone plans?!
He should also demand all bloggers be polite.
Oh, and he absolutely has stop guys who are picking up their girlfriends from honking their horns in the driveway when they should be walking up to the door and knocking!
He’s such a jellyfish.
Prof-
Obviously you think that business is God and should be worshipped for their unquestionable righteousness and that the only requirment of business is that it must be placed far and above all else in this country.
Has it ever occurred to you that the very reason our country is in the mess that it is in is Exactly because of uncontrolled capitalism, ie. business without question?
No Allen, you know apparently haven’t been reading. I’ll break it into little bites.
1. You suggested that the PRESIDENT fix this.
2. The president has no authority to do that.
3. The president shouldn’t have that authority. There’s no way that he could micro-manage all business in this country, and do it well.
Believing that the president can or should fix this is much, much closer to the definition of worship.
It’s also totalitarianism, Prof, as with so many similar things.
“Business ethics comes to “doing right” by their constituencies, which are:
– their employees”
All business knows that they have no need for “doing right” by employees, the minimum they need to do is treat them lawfully, and only then if risk analysis shows treating them lawfully is cheaper than not.
I use to work for a major corporation that consistently ranks in the top 10 places to work. Less than 2 months after I was hired my department was eliminated, everyone with more than 1 year service got some sort of severance, those with less got shown the door with nothing. When I asked why I wouldn’t receive a severance package I was told that they figured it would cost them less to have me challenge them not paying a severance package and then ultimately paying it than paying everyone with less than 1 year severance. I sued, they paid. A business, even one that prides itself on how it treats employees, only answers to the bottom line.
And Logan is right, discriminating against the unemployed is self-destructive. But the current business model most company now subscribe to dictates that if it helps next quarters numbers it is the right thing to do.