When Sony Ericsson needed new workers after it relocated its U.S. headquarters to Atlanta last year, its recruiters told one particular group of applicants not to bother. “No unemployed candidates will be considered at all,” one online job listing said.
The cell-phone giant later said the listing, which produced a media uproar, had been a mistake. But other companies continue to refuse to even consider the unemployed for jobs — a harsh catch-22 at a time when long-term joblessness is at its highest level in decades.
The apparent uptick in such incidents couldn’t come at a worse time for the unemployed. The Great Recession has produced an unusually large number of long-term jobless. Forty percent of the nation’s unemployed — some 4.4 million people — have been out of work for a year or more, the highest level since World War II. The long-term unemployed have far more difficulty finding work than people who have left the workforce more recently. The problem is worst for workers over 50, who often face age discrimination as well.
Some employers argue that they have a perfectly reasonable right to weed out the unemployed and that it is just good business. People who have lost jobs or have never been hired are less qualified as a group than those who are currently working, they say. People who are out of the workforce for a significant period of time may also have fallen behind in skills.
See TIME’s special “Out of Work in America.”
