Beverly Bowne, who lives in the Bronx, worked for 28 years as a billing coordinator for a printing company in New York City. And then in 2009, she and a number of other employees at the company -- including her own supervisor -- were laid off.
Bowne's employer was hard hit by the recession. The company, like so many in the printing industry, is shriveling fast as internet communication replaces the need for printed materials.
For Bowne, the lay off was devastating. "I fell apart completely," she said. "You have to go through the grieving process." Bowne has spent the last two and a half years looking for work, sending out hundreds of resumes. Often, she gets the cold shoulder from prospective employers reacting to her grey hair and her age (she'll be 60 next month.)
Now, she's begun to see a new kind of snub -- job ads on Careerbuilder.com from companies saying that applicants must already be employed in order to apply for the job. Bowne calls the ads "outright discrimination," adding that these ads "remind me of the 'Irish need not apply' ads of our earlier history."
Bowne isn't the only one infuriated by the ads. The progressive activist orgranization USAction has now launched an on-line petition campaign to stop what they are calling an "outrageous" form of job discrimination.
"It's outrageous enough that 14 million Americans are out of work. But discriminating against jobless people who just want to feed their families and stay in their homes? Employers should not penalize applicants for a job status that they cannot control, especially when prohibiting the unemployed from applying only compounds the issue."
To say American's are job-hungry is an understatement. So many Americans are downright desperate. To those folks, some of whom were comfortably employed at the top of their fields before they got bounced, the idea that you can't apply for a job unless you have one may sound a bit Kafka-esque. Or downright cruel.
But to companies advertising in places like Careerbuilder, Craigslist and Monster.com, there is a certain evil logic. These days, it is clearly an employer's job market. With so many millions of people unemployed, and frantic to find jobs, companies are routinely flooded with applications for every open position.
That flood gives employers the privilege to be very, very picky. Some employers reason that people who were let go during the recession -- people like Bowne who still cannot find work -- tend to be less desirable employees. Those lucky folks who have managed to keep their jobs are the cream of the crop.
This logic seems to Bowne like just one more punch in the face as millions of jobless remain unemployed, through no fault of their own. "They treat you like you don't want to work," she says, which is absolutely not the case. "We want to go back to work, but basically there is nothing out there." Bowne has attended numerous job fairs, and she's also had extensive guidance from social services on how to get re-employed. One tip she's taken to heart: volunteer work. She now spends two days a week volunteering at a nearby nursing home, and while there, she took the initiative to reorganize and clean out the conference room. She also took charge of the nursing home's files, and got them all in order. Still, she's so discouraged by job hunting in the New York area that she is now planning to relocate in the next month or two to Mesa, Arizona, where she has family. Hopefully, there, she will have more luck finding work.
The job ads in question are particularly hard on older Americans, for whom job-hunting already has a cruel twist. The clock is ticking for these folks, as they pass out of their prime working years.
Bowne says that in the many seminars and job fairs that she's attended looking for work, she's met a slew of middle-aged men and women who are up a tree looking for jobs. "Anybody in their 50s or older is really having a tough time," she says. "I've seen executives who have been out two or three years. Many of them are in their early fifties, in their prime, they've been vice presidents, and still they're without jobs."
An article in the New York Times indicates that job ads telling unemployed people not to apply is a practice that technically doesn't break the law:
Legal experts say that the practice probably does not violate discrimination laws because unemployment is not a protected status, like age or race. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently held a hearing, though, on whether discriminating against the jobless might be illegal because it disproportionately hurts older people and blacks.
According to the Times, companies of all sizes and types are engaged in this advertising practice. The University of Phoenix removed their ads after the Times inquired about them. Other job categories included among those discriminating against unemployed workers include "hotel concierges, restaurant managers, teachers, I.T. specialists, business analysts, sales directors, account executives, orthopedics device salesmen, auditors and air-conditioning technicians."
In a recent report, the Washington, D.C.-based National Employment Law Project called the job ads a "perverse catch-22 [which] is deepening our unemployment crisis by arbitrarily foreclosing job opportunities to many who are otherwise qualified for them. It dilutes the storehouse of talent in America, by casting aside an untold number of skilled and dedicated workers who have the misfortune of being unemployed in the worst downturn since the Great Depression. And it adds to the crisis that unemployed workers, their families and their communities face, as we try to crawl out of this deep recessionary hole."
Follow Claudia Ricci on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RicciCJ
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How do we expect those who are unemployed to become employed again with these huge barriers against them? And if we don't remove these barriers, what do you expect to do with all these tens of millions of people? Watch them become homeless?
When I would land a phone interview, the interviewer would tell me there were dozens of people I would compete against. Then the first interview, over a dozen people, then the 2nd interview, probably a half dozen. Then even if I ranked #2 or #3 out of the hundreds I started out against, I would not get the job, so I would have to start all over again and again and again. It would often take months just to get a few phone interviews. So you can see the odds are heavily stacked against the unemployed.
Many employers would not even talk to me because I was unemployed.
So what do you do with these unemployed, help them help themselves, or do you cut their only life line for survival? I can't believe any human being would be cold blooded enough to cut someone in need, while wanting to give billions to the wealthy.
I would LOVE to volunteer or temp. However what am I supposed to do with my kids? I have no support network here. Everyone I know works the same hours I would be volunteering or temping.
I don't have a blank space. I have stay at home mother. Duties include chauffeur, referee, accountant, chef, tutor, mediator, maid, etc
For the past year I have been trying to get a Full time job or any part-time regular job. But, I was told by one company that if I am not already employed full time they toss my resume and application in the trash.
I then re-wrote my resume to include a false part-time job that I have "held" for the past 7 years which is owned by a friend. The friend vouched for me that I have been employed with them. And guess what? I started getting interviews with the same companies that would not even interview me because I was not "employed".
Sometimes you have to Lie to take care of your family.
You need to watch "Shift Happens" the original version to understand why China can do what they do.
Also, they look for the purple squirrel, which is someone who simply does not exist. They then post month after month, year after year for the same exact job. They either can't find anyone, or fire someone within 6 months and start the process over and over again.
I often find in my job, that a half dozen people have been in my position over a 3 year period. Great, that shows you how long the job will last.
No she cannot, because she knows that her next promotion will involve a meeting. A meeting that she will never know about, between that promoting manager, HR, and some other stakeholders. In that meeting the stakeholders, including HR, will discuss whether they have any concerns. If HR voices something about "difficult to work with" or "desires to cut corners", she's sunk before even realizing she was up for consideration.
It seems I'm doomed to lifelong unemployement or at best underemployment, along with so many others who can't seem to catch a break in this market. The "unemployment figures" don't capture people like me, or someone who has taken a job way below where they used to be. Anyone who beleives unemployment is 9% is smoking something!
And yes it's sad that I have to practically apologize for taking on the most important job there is - raising my children. But that's been a problem for decades and isn't limited to our current economic crisis. It's simply amplified now.
HAHAHAHAHA Just kidding, only baggers believe that kind of stuff.