California Bill to Ban Long-Term Unemployed Individuals from Being Screened Out for Emplyoment

Some employers and their advertisements are quite blunt about what they are looking for. In general, many people have noticed that quite a few of these job advertisements do not want resumes being sent to them unless the individual who sends the resume is already employed and receiving a paycheck. Some of these job advertisements want the individual to be currently or recently employed in order for that individual to be eligible for employment with their company. This is a way to screen out certain people, particularly those who have been unemployed for quite a while, and narrow their pool of hopeful candidates.

The National Employment Law Project held a random search of different online job listings during 2011. The group found that there were actually about 150 job advertisements that would exclude certain applications based solely on their status of employment. In fact, most of these advertisements blatantly stated that the individual applying for the position must be currently employed.

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

The state of New Jersey has already passed a law that bans these advertisements. The federal legislation for the law is currently pending. There is also a California bill, which has recently been proposed, Assembly Bill 1450, and it prohibits employers for discriminating against individuals who are currently jobless during the hiring process.

Michael Allen, the Assemblyman, who is also a Democrat in the Santa Rosa area and author of AB 1450, has said, “It’s the same as excluding a particular religion or minority group – it’s wrong.” In fact, there are a number of people who would be affected by such bias. This includes recent college graduates, veterans, and other military personnel.

Those who are against AB 1450 are stating that the lawmakers simply have no business getting involved with a company and its own internal affairs. In the meantime, the president of the Small Business Action Committee, Joel Fox, has said, “The Legislature shouldn’t be running their business for them.

There are some opponents of the bill who state that the employment status of an applicant is quite crucial in certain situations and for certain types of employment.

Roger Niello, the President for the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, believes that employers should have the right to question and wonder why specific applications have a huge gap in their employment. Neillo says, “If that law passed, you’d really be getting into risky territory any time you asked any question like that.”