Hiring bias hurting jobless

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Job applicants sought — but only if they don’t need work.

The message in some job advertisements these days is pretty blunt: Don’t bother sending a resume if you’re not bringing home a paycheck already.

The ads list current or recent employment as an eligibility requirement, a screen to narrow the pool of candidates in a rocky economy that often leads to dozens of applicants for a single job.

A random search of online job listings last year by the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit advocacy group, found 150 ads nationwide that excluded applicants based on employment status. Most of them said “must be currently employed,” the group reported.

“So many people are unemployed for such long periods of time that this kind of discrimination has a devastating impact,” said Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project.

New Jersey has passed a law banning such advertisements, federal legislation is pending, and a newly proposed California bill would prohibit discriminating against the jobless in hiring.

“It’s the same as excluding a particular religion or minority group — it’s wrong,” said California Assemblyman Michael Allen, a Democrat whose Assembly Bill 1450 hopes to end the practice.

College graduates, military personnel and women returning to the workforce are among groups of people affected by a blanket exclusion, Allen said.

Opponents of such a law counter that lawmakers have no business interfering in companies’ internal affairs and that the measure could prompt a flood of frivolous complaints that would be costly to investigate and difficult to prosecute.

Opponents say the bill is a one-size-fits-all solution, while an applicant’s recent employment can be critical in various high-tech jobs or other jobs requiring skill sets that change rapidly.

Roger Niello, president of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, said barring businesses from disqualifying the jobless could tie a company’s hands in the kinds of questions asked during interviews.

When an applicant’s resume shows a gap in employment, it is natural to ask why, Niello said.

“If that law passed, you’d really be getting into risky territory any time you asked any question like that,” he said.

Niello said he does not agree with jobless-need-not-apply advertising, but “I think it’s absolutely inappropriate to say they can’t.”