’ I’ve also been told point-blank to my face, ‘We don’t hire the unemployed.’

[kpete]

Caught in Unemployment’s Revolving Door

...........


“I’ve been turned down from McDonald’s because I was told I was too articulate,” she says. “I got denied a job scrubbing toilets because I didn’t speak Spanish and turned away from a laundromat because I was ‘too pretty.’ I’ve also been told point-blank to my face, ‘We don’t hire the unemployed.’ And the two times I got real interest from a prospective employer, the credit check ended it immediately.”

For Ms. Barrington-Ward, joblessness itself has become a trap, an impediment to finding a job. Economists see it the same way, concerned that joblessness lasting more than six months is a major factor preventing people from getting rehired, with potentially grave consequences for tens of millions of Americans.

The long-term jobless, after all, tend to be in poorer health, and to have higher rates of suicide and strained family relations. Even the children of the long-term unemployed see lower earnings down the road.

The consequences are grave for the country, too: lost production, increased social spending, decreased tax revenue and slower growth. Policy makers and academics are now asking whether an improving economy might absorb those workers in time to prevent long-term economic damage.


..............

the rest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/business/caught-in-unemployments-revolving-door.html?_r=0

[Mass]

1. I have not, but my husband has pretty much seen exactly that. Added to that the fact he is 57.

We are really in trouble now and he cannot get answers even for basic entry-level jobs even at the grocery store. (and generally they do not even bother giving a reason. The filters in the online application programs probably reject him before his application sees a human eye.

[Kahuna]

2. I got an email from a recruiter that made it clear that anyone

with 15+ years of experience wouldn't be considered. Age discrimination, anyone?

[enlightenment]

27. Definitely.

They don't even try to hide it anymore.

[Ms. Toad]

32. And that is illegal -

Look for a class action attorney, particularly if you are willing to be a named plaintiff.

It is a violation of federal law to discriminate against people 40 years or older, including in ways which have a disparate impact on people 40 years old, or older. Because most people who have 15 years experience are 36-39-ish, or older, thegroup this disparately impacts is people who are over 40.

[Turbineguy]

3. There has to be a business model out there

that could use skilled, mature people who know how to work.

But then they would need MBA's who only know how to "cut costs".

[BumRushDaShow]

5. Unfortunately

the latest "MBA" bullshit education has destroyed this country, focusing on not needing to have any knowledge of the business you are to manage and only accepting 10 - 20% profits, no matter how you get there, in order to be considered "successful". I.e., they are manufacturing tens of thousands of vulture capitalists out of the business schools nowadays and the disastrous results are now being seen in their full glory.
.

[FreeJoe]

36. I worked for a company like that

They specialized in hiring old retired or laid off engineers in the refining business. It worked really well. They got great employees with great work habits.

[KG]

4. on a positve note, they're mandated to buy health insurance they cant afford to pay for

or use!

[Fumesucker]

6. At least they can blame the Republicans for it n/t

[SammyWinstonJack]

8. Can't have those health insurance CEOs suffer any financial hardship, now can we?

[TreasonousBastard]

7. This is not new-- we've seen it before, usually...

on a cyclical basis.

The problem now is that it's becoming semi-permanent and critical. Worldwide, 50% (and up) unemployment is becoming the norm and here baby boomers who have been displaced for whatever reason are just not needed.

I haven't read the article yet, but what's rarely addressed are the reasons for job losses and even more rarely are solutions. Productivity (using fewer people to produce the same output) is the biggest problem, and it's not going away. New industries picking up the slack just aren't happening right now, except for silliness like Twitter, which can run a billion dollar operation with six guys in a basement. In the last hundred years we've seen completely new industries like cars and airplanes cause huge growth, but the best we can do now is phones.

The good news is that as we boomers die off, a few generations down the road the birth rate is much lower and we'll be back to an employee shortage. That's not good news for us here and now, though.

When asked, I tell kids to put off college for a while and study auto mechanics or plumbing-- stuff they can't export, is needed locally, and pays well.

[Enrique]

9. birth rate decline will be offset by immigration

the 1% will engineer things so that an employee shortage isn't something they'll have to worry about. Unless something changes in our government such that they won't be able to do that.

[boomersense]

11. Exactly right. And this will result in a disaster. Can you see

it? TPP squeaks by and from then on fairness in employment practices disappears with most other constitutional protections (the constitution will no longer be senior on anything important) and immigrants working cheaply will have all the jobs. Blacks will suffer the most--and they know it.

[treestar]

18. Where in the TPP does it say that our employment discrimination laws

are to be repealed?

[TreasonousBastard]

24. It doesn't-- just another talking point...

although some parts of it might be used to get around our laws.

Remember that many other countries have laws with more teeth than ours.

[TreasonousBastard]

28. Of course immigration will-- that's the natural order of things...

and it has nothing to do with secret plans of the 1%.

[fasttense]

12. About 13.8% of the US is unemployed.

That's 143,568,000 currently unemployed people. Yeah I know that's more than 13.8% but it includes people in school and institutionalized from the age of 16 on up according to the BLS. But what if everybody with a job worked 13.8% less. Instead of 13.8% of people suffering job loss, what if everyone just worked 13.8% less, than everybody who wanted a job could have a job.

But you can't do that under capitalism. Instead you have to make a few people suffer for no fault of their own.

[SheilaT]

17. The population of the United States is around 317 million people.

Fourteen percent of that number (and I'm rounding up here) is a heck of a lot less than 143, 568,000 (or about 144 million.) I don't think you can realistically include those in school and those institutionalized. The number you use about triple what 14 percent of our population actually is.

However, one good solution to the unemployment issue would be an extension of what was done in the Great Depression, which was to change the workday from 12 hours to 8. Change the current workweek from 40 hours to 36, or even 30, leaving base pay alone, making overtime kick in at 36 or 30 hours.

[fasttense]

22. I went back to the BLS and I can't seem to find that number again.

Weird, I was trying to get the number of all unemployed people in the US. I now get 11,272,000 but that's not everyone that's just those they "count" as unemployed. That is not the number I was looking for. I think I must have slipped into an alternate universe for a moment. Or I just read it wrong.

Well, anyway, I was trying to get to that idea of not letting random individual suffer constant unemployment but we share it all among everyone. Yes, reducing work hours would be a way of doing that.

[TreasonousBastard]

30. The problem with going in blindly and looking up numbers without a background...

in those numbers and how they are collected is that they are misinterpreted.

Less than half the US population that is theoretically able to work is employed because of stay-at-home moms and dads, retirees, medical problems, school, prison, and other things that one might want to judge as good or bad reasons.

"Full employment" is seen by economists as the level at which everyone who wants a job has one and there are no inflationary or deflationary effects from the workforce. It is never 100% because there is always a certain amount of shuffling around and job changes and 100% would be highly inflationary.

Right now, there are huge arguments over whether the full employment rate should be around 4%, like it had been for years, or closer to 6 or 7%. Needless to say, both are far under what we have now so we are nowhere near full employment. Some economists have argued that this is as good as it's going to get so the rate should be over 10%-- they aren't very popular.

But, after all this is hashed over for the thousandth time, just how are we going to get the unemployed back to work? Massive Depression-style public works have been considered and dropped for many reasons-- not the least of which is ignorant Republican virtually religious opposition to spending any Democrat likes.

My personal take is to try to get lower spending levels to fix obvious problems-- aging infrastructure, cleaning up the waterways, basic research... Just getting back to doing the jobs we're supposed to be doing should be a pretty good kickstart.

[TreasonousBastard]

26. That's been experimented with in Europe...

but I don't know if any results are in.

The other half of capitalism, btw, is creating those jobs in the first place.

[FreeJoe]

40. Aside from the obvious math error,

life isn't that simple.

1) There is a lot of overhead in an employee. When I hire a full time employee, I have to put them in an office. I have to train them. I have to provide benefits to them. All of these overhead costs typically cost as much or more as their salary and most of them are the same cost regardless of how many hours the employee works. Because of that, if I worked them 13.8% less, I would save only about 6-7% of their costs.

2) At least where I work, productivity increases more than linearly with hours worked. If someone works 13.8% less, I will lose more than 13.8% in productivity. I know this because we have an unofficial reduced time track for people that need shorter work schedules. They typically work four eight hours days a week. It is a popular option with moms and employees easing into retirement. Some of the difference in productivity per hour is an illusion because these people put in proportionally fewer overtime hours, but some also comes from the fixed costs of having a job.

3) The pool of people with jobs and without jobs are not the same. While there are definitely people with tremendous human capital out of work and some dreadful employees, the median employed person is going to have more valuable skills than the median unemployed person or person not in the labor force. If you take a percentage of a job from someone with higher skills and give it to a person with lower skills, you will lose productivity.

[gopiscrap]

10. that's fucked up

[MythosMaster]

13. If only the job creators

had more tax breaks to give them incentives to hiring more workers then this would all disappear.

[dickthegrouch]

14. I'd rather see them taxed on unused funds

If a company has a few billion in the bank that it's not using, that money should be taxed at a higher percentage than they could earn if they were using it.

I can see having a cushion for downturns, but there is no excuse for companies to have tens of billions sitting idle.

There's even less reason for individuals to be able to control billions. While I applaud Bill Gates and others for financing continental scale projects that the governments just don't have the money for, I still think there's too much money resting with too few people. I'd even rather see 100 people get one million each from the lottery, than one person blow 100 million just because they can.

[treestar]

16. why do they need that as incentive?

the only incentive is more customers.

And answer my question below please, righty.

[Brigid]

19. I have a suspicion . . .

That sarcasm is at work here. At least, that's how I took it.

[MythosMaster]

20. That swooshing noise you heard

was my sarcasm going over your head.

[treestar]

21. Sometimes you need to use the emotion

With few posts and a statement that read plainly as a typical right wing argument, it's bound to be taken literally. I don't fault myself for not seeing it, as there was little to make it stand out that way.

[MythosMaster]

23. Sometimes you need to use common sense.

So no apology, just blame me.

[annabanana]

29. And yet money for the poor only make THEM indolent..

funny how that works, isn't it?

[treestar]

15. Wonder how right wingers respond to that

after all they are the ones who say you should just get a job and not get any help from gubmint (just from their churches).

[WinkyDink]

25. Billionaires don't care= Politicians don't care.

[kimbutgar]

31. My current job ends at the end of the year and I understand the need to find a job before I'm out of

a job. I'm 57 but look younger and hope something comes soon. It seems insurance companies are interested in me but I am not interested in them. I am taking every interview offered to get experience but it is a scary time for me.

[Ms. Toad]

34. You may get lucky.

I'm the same age. My employer had a major cutback in clients - from being able to support 14 of us, to being able to support perhaps 5. A job which was a perfect fit for me came open - so I decided to go for it, rather than limp along with no guarantee there would be ongoing work for me.

I suspected they wouldn't even interview me - since they knew it would be a 50% pay cut. Once interviewed, I suspected they wouldn't offer me the job. They did - at the highest amount in the range they mentioned. I asked for a bit more, they gave it to me. I've been there a month & am much happier than I've been in at least a year - because of the stress of the cut we knew was coming.

We're working hard at remembering that we now have more time than money - and pinching pennies, but it puts me back in a defined benefit retirement plan - which (given how long my family lives) will mean that every dollar I'm sacrificing now is added almost directly to my retirement income (or doubled, if I live as long as my grandmother).

But - I feel for you. My big fear was losing insurance for my family (my same gender spouse - with what appears to be the early stages of Alzheimer's (she hasn't been fully employed in a decade), and my daughter heading for a liver transplant). Settling that I would continue to have access to health insurance, and be able to provide it for my family, was a huge - and worth the struggle of living with far more limited means than we have in years.

And - it is so nice to be looking forward to tomorrow morning, rather than dreading it.

[MsFlorida]

33. Unemployed for two years - this is what I did

used to make around $60K, now earning under $10 an hour.....

After sending out hundreds of resumes, filling out hundreds of online applications, paper applications, phone calls, emails - you name it, I did it. Received a grand total of 3, yes, count them 3 interviews that all went well, but I'm older, too qualified, etc etc.

So, I took my education off my resume, diminished my experience. Was losing my house - I needed income, any income. I applied at walmart - all positions, any hours and called the personnel dept to let them know I had completed an online application.

I was hired! It didnt matter whether I liked the job or not - I was desperate, unemployment had run out, bank accounts emptied, nicer furniture sold (basically anything I could sell was sold) 401K taken out with penalty hanging on by my fingernails.

Needless to say, I work with some of the nicest and best educated people ever. People just like me AND I am older.

[Ms. Toad]

37. Good for you!

Getting something on the resume in those gap times is crucial. Even if it is volunteer work (you don't need to tell them), or creatively titled self-employment. And be persistent.

Taking the years off of graduation dates and employment, and only listing the most relevant jobs for a particular application are also good ideas.

When I had a 5 year gap because I was a stay-at-home mom - and credentials that no one else in my graduating class could match - I got a similar interview response to yours. I wasn't getting any. Even though you aren't supposed to talk about family status - I started highlighting the choice we made to have one of us be the primary at home caretaker - and then what looked like the spotty employment record of someone who couldn't hold down a job, became the enterprising activities of a stay-at-home mom to continue being engaged in the world of work, continuing to acquire new skills, etc.

You have to creatively market yourself, and make what look like drawbacks vanish or turn into strengths.

And - still, for many that is not enough (I don't want to say it is all hunky dory if you just market yourself properly - far too many really good people do that and are still unable to get jobs).

[FreeJoe]

35. It is a catch-22

I work in a professional/corporate environment. I know nothing about hiring practices in retail, manufacturing, farm-work, etc. In my environment, a typical manager gets to hire about 1 person a year on average. If they hire badly, they'll be stuck with that bad employee for a long time. For that reason, everyone I know is extremely risk averse in hiring. They always want to go for the safe hire.

Hiring "safe" leads to lots of societal dysfunction. It means that people with connections get hired over people without connections because they are "known" quantities. If you come with a good recommendation from someone I know and trust, I'm much more likely to take a chance on you than a stranger. The modern corporate code essentially forbids formal references, so if I don't know someone that knows you, I'm not likely to get any professional reference on you.

As described in the OP, it leads to discrimination against the unemployed. People don't want to take the risk of hiring someone that isn't currently working because there may be a reason why they aren't. There usually isn't a good reason, but no one wants to take that risk. The more desperate you are for a job, the less people want to hire you. It's kind of like the high school dating scene all over again.

I'm not sure how you solve the problem.

[MsFlorida]

38. I know hiring - from most all industries

I also came from a professional/corporate environment. I've never worked retail in my life.

Here's the thing - dont get older.

[truebluegreen]

39. Retirement age needs to be lowered, not raised.

Likewise Medicare eligibility. Increase SS payments too.

Take a bunch of people out of the labor market and wages will go up, the economy will grow. More money will flow into the government's coffers and we can start to pull ourselves out of this mess.

Only a part of the puzzle and it totally won't happen but it sure would help. Edited to add: and a lot of our citizens could use the rest!

[doc03]

41. You don't get hired in most places if you worked a job represented buy a union either n/t