The recent outcry over "no unemployed persons need apply" is just one of several creative ways to weed out "undesirables," especially those over 50.
I really love the weight lifting requirements and phrases like "energetic," "high energy level," and other age discrimination euphemisms found more and more on job announcements. There are job applications which say you must list every single job you have ever held, not just jobs in the past ten years, for the simple reason the employer can estimate your age. I for one can't even REMEMBER all of the jobs I have held in 35 years in the labor force, let alone dates of employment; a lot of the jobs I had were "little" jobs of a temporary or part-time nature while I was working on my master's degree in the 1990s.
This article spells out the ways HR departments weed out the older applicants or those who are currently unemployed.
Online job postings frequently specify that a candidate "must be currently employed" in order to be considered for a position, and headhunter Isang Inokon told HuffPost in December that he has trouble placing unemployed people in jobs because employers "want somebody who's wanted."
More than 6 million long-term unemployed job-seekers are left to guess why their applications don't earn them a phone call. But Judy Conti, a lobbyist for the National Employment Law Project, said she is confident that these discriminatory practices will eventually be brought to light.
"More often than not, when employers of any sort try to be too clever by half, they end up getting tripped up with the laws anyway," Conti said. "I'm quite confident that if this kind of scheme really gets out there, there will be really clever employment lawyers that figure out how to go at it."
I am not holding my breath things will change and get better for older unemployed workers.
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