Unemployed: Didn't Get That Job? Sue!

I agree. I question the logic behind this one. Employers have a reason for not wanting to hire the long-term unemployed, it just isn't a very good one. Rather than punish those who don't hire the unemployed, it would make more sense to incentivise those who do. That's already a part of the recent jobs bill in the form of tax rebates, and I applaud them (the administration) for it. I'm just not sure why they tacked this on.

There is probably a decent explanation for it as they see it, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. I'd be open to hearing one, though. I don't think it's purely pandering, though I'm sure that's part of it.

 

I think it's unnecessary simply because the only thing it will do is to stop the practice of saying "unemployed need not apply" - or something to that effect. You can probably come up with a dozen different excuses for why you chose not to hire a specific person. So long as you don't say, "You didn't get the job because you are unemployed" to the person who applied, how can they prove that was the reason you did it?

In today's job market it's not at all unusual for there to be 10 times as many applicants as there are positions to fill. Nine out of 10 people aren't getting that job no matter how many of them are employed or not. You could come up with many reasons for not hiring a specific person like:

1. We took someone with more experience.
2. We took someone who had a skill set that more closely matched the job description.
3. We did hire someone who was unemployed - it's just that the person wasn't you.
4. We took someone who had a lower salary requirement.

And so on and so forth. You can almost always come up with another reason to not hire someone if you don't want to.

 

I don't remember, which party does the "trial lawyers" support?

 

You can bring suit - that doesn't mean you'll win. Like I said, there are dozens of reasons you can have for not hiring someone. Unless you're stupid enough to tell them that the reason they aren't being hired is because they are unemployed, the onus is on the person bringing suit to prove that's the reason you did it.

 

Snook, the only reason that the GOP keeeps harping on that 'trial lawyer' thing is that the corporate interests that fund the GOP want to reduce their liability, if posssible to zero, under the pretext of 'individual responsibility' - and it is trial lawyers that make them pay for damages caused by their products. They are thus the natural target for GOP scorn.

That trial lawyers and their cases at times reach absurd extremes, and indeed must, is a result of poorly or not at all codified law in the US and reliance on often absurd or simply obsolete precedence. We don't have as absurd cases here because we have clearly codified civil law that sets strict limits on damages. We also have, more broadly speaking, a system that socialises some of the risk inherent in everyday affairs. That lady who won millions for scalding herself by spilling that hot McD coffee - imposssible in Germany. She would have gotten treatment costs, maybe some amount for pain and suffering but not nearly as much as in the US. And punitive damages? We don't have that. We don't have that quota litis either, further disincentivising frivolous lawsuits - there just isn't any money in it here.

Have a workplace accident? You get your treatment paid by the respective "employer´s liability insurance association" - into which all respective industries have to pay in. In case of injury there is no need to sue anyone, which means that there is no needs to burn bridges. Employees usually continue to work for the company afterwards (something quite unlikely if they had to sue their employer to recover treatment costs). In contrast, the only way in the US for an injured party to recover such costs often is the trial lawyer.

In that sense, don't blame the trial lawyers but that at times anachronistic legal system they work in. The people blaming the trial layers busy themselves keeping it that way. 'Tort reform' is just a way of not having to say 'reducing liability for corporate donors'.

 

The job openings could be covered by new entrants to the workforce, could they not? Maybe not directly but a couple of people get moved up a step on the career ladder and a job for a new worker is created. Also there is always a pool of unemployed and nowadays a big pool. The openings could be taken by the recently unemployed and the long term could be left langiushing.

There is a serious issue in that when you're long term unemployed your skills will atrophy and you'd find it harder to fit back into work. I don't see letting people sue as being the answer though, it's ignoring that there is a genuine problem. As Aldeth said employers would just make up a reason not to hire them. Providing incentives would be better. That would cost money though whereas changing the law is more or less free for the government so they can pretend they're doing something.

I would be seriously irked if I saw ads with phrases like "jobless need not apply". It makes no sense for people who are let go recently. I was unemployed for about 10 weeks or so. That wasn't much longer than the time I had off for study leave when doing my exams. It certainly wasn't long enough to affect my ability to do the job.

 

I'd put new entrants as a different category. There's quite a different set of problems and in many cases the jobs suitable for them are different as well. New entrants are often only suitable for some jobs. Long term unemployed have problems with all jobs. And my point is that it's possible for someone to stay in the unemployed pool indefinitely. I don't think it's a bad idea to offer them supports to try and break out of that trap (though the lawsuit idea is stupid).

 

I've been thinking about this thread and I think there are many similar things in the world of employment. We had an employee that we laid off about three years. Somehow we have remained in the loop about him over this time and he has landed jobs at three other CPA firms and ended up being laid off all three of them. He isn't a bad guy, he just isn't the greatest at our profession. With the economy struggling and firms having to cut back, everytime a firm has layoffs he is considered one of the weakest links and he is let go. I can't help but think if I was a hiring manager and his resume came across my desk I wouldn't call him back as the work history would show there is something wrong. Isn't that kind of the same thing? If someone has been unemployed long term why shouldn't that trouble an employer that the employee may be no good?

My last thought is, I wonder how much creativity (or just plain lying) is going on in resumes nowadays. It isn't like lying on a resume or job application is a crime and as long as you aren't going for a "public" position or something you aren't qualified for where is the harm? I'm guessing anyone can work retail?

 

I would say that holding multiple jobs in a short period of time - like your former co-worker - is a much bigger red flag that having been laid off once, even if it was some months ago. I think most managers understand that state of the economy, and that many people have lost their jobs because their company went under - they lost their jobs not because of poor performance or an undesirable work ethic.

But I completely agree that if I got a resume of someone who has been employed and laid off at three different companies in the last couple of years, that would set alarm bells ringing for me. The only two possible explanations would be that he is either not very good at what he does, or he's really, really unlucky.

Nowadays? I'm sure it's just as much as always, which is to say rampant. I think creative resumes have been around since, well, resumes have been around.

 

Which is why background checks/employment verification exist.

 

A friend of a friend got fired when they followed up his references. He had worked somewhere for 8 months but put down a year on his CV. That was exceptionally harsh in my opinion, the difference is marginal.

 

They checked his references after hiring him? Weird.

 

As a matter of fact, at least in Germany it is a crime - Eingeghungsbetrug - a specific vartiant of fraud, justifying, beyond criminal charges, an immediate termination of contract by the employer (if he chooses to do that). Falsifying or modifying references or credentials is simply forgery.

 

Here in the U.S. almost everyone is an "employee at will" so there isn't a contractual relationship between the employee and the employer. I'm surmising that is why it isn't treated as a fraud because the employer has the right to terminate the employee because of it without recourse.

 

Snook,
two things: For one, the phrase 'employee at will' doesn't mean it isn't a contract. Of course there is a contractual relationship between the two - it simply is a contract without recourse (even without recourse it is still a mutual agreement about the exchange of services for money under conditions; to be a contract it doesn't even need to be in writing). Second, you overlook that there is a civil law and criminal law dimension in this, with the two being distinctly different. The contract is a civil law matter, the fraud a criminal law matter.

In Germany typical criminal cases along this line are when people are hired based on their claim to have, for instance, medical or law degrees, but don't, and have forged their credentials. When charges are filed then these people are usually being sentenced. The point is that the average employers usually are content with firing and usually do not press charges. Hospitals and law firms, or public sector employers for that matter, usually do file - be it only to limit their own liability (public sector employers, as wardens of the rule of law, are, usually, obliged to report criminal acts like fraud to law enforcement).

 

Yeah that's really weird. Were there other issues? Because I agree saying a year when it was actually eight months seems like a marginal amount of time. Especially seeing as how with my resumes I only put down the years to begin with, not the actual months. If I was only working at a job for part of a year, say from January - August in 2011, I'd probably list it on my resume as "name of job: 2011." I wouldn't get to the level of detail of months.

The only way I could see this being a big issue is if you fiddled around to make it look like a lot longer than it was. For example, if you worked at a company from November 2010 until January 2011, it would be disingenuous to put down on a resume "Name of job: 2010-2011", as that would suggest you were talking about a term of employment of about two years, not three months.