Unemployed? Don't bother applying.

[JerichoHill]

So it's okay to discriminate based on gender, sexuality, age and race, as long as there are far too many applicants per job? It's just so darn difficult for those HR departments to handle all those equality laws these days! Just because it's difficult for HR departments to avoid discriminating based on gender, sexuality, age, race, and unemployment doesn't mean they should be excused from doing it...

No. Those are protected statuses

 

[Tani Coyote]

Hmm. On second thought, J_H's input changes perspective here; we can't employ everybody and we can't interview them all either. Some sort of narrowing factor is necessary.

The only narrowing factor that'd be 100% fair, I think, would be a drawing. The company decides how many people it wants to interview and then draws that number from the pool.

Of course, there are some issues; some may be more qualified than others. But, since you can't interview them all to find that out...

Or make a ratio of employed to unemployed people selected for interviewing, close to 50/50, to keep opportunity equal. Arguably there should be a skewing toward unemployed, however, as they don't already have a job.

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

I am sure the economy would be much improved if we enforced less efficient hiring practices.

 

[Tani Coyote]

I am sure the economy would be much improved if we enforced less efficient hiring practices.

Is this sarcasm, or a reference to how it's been said that employment is more important than productivity?

 

[Fugitive Sisyphus]

Is this sarcasm, or a reference to how it's been said that employment is more important than productivity?

It is sarcasm. 'Discriminatory' hiring practices don't reduce employment. If a company only hires already employed people, those people's old jobs now become available. And already employed people do not any less right to a new job either.

 

[Mise]

No. Those are protected statuses

It should be obvious that I wasn't asking you whether it was legal, but whether it was morally and ethically right. But apparently the only thing that compels you to do what's moral and ethical is whether it is legal or not, so let me ask the blindingly obvious question: should discrimination based on employment status be illegal? And if not, you'd have to come up with a pretty compelling argument why that kind of discrimination is somehow different from other kinds of discrimination.

Personally, I work on the assumption that all discrimination is bad and should be illegal, and something is discrimination if you make an employment decision based on metrics that have no bearing on the ability to perform the job. If you think you can come up with a better definition of discrimination then go for it.

 

[Cheetah]

Personally, I work on the assumption that all discrimination is bad and should be illegal, and something is discrimination if you make an employment decision based on metrics that have no bearing on the ability to perform the job. If you think you can come up with a better definition of discrimination then go for it.

If I may nitpick a little, here are some definitions of 'discrimination':

1.
an act or instance of discriminating.
2.
treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
3.
the power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgment: She chose the colors with great discrimination.

Thus, while choosing which person to hire, one naturally has to discriminate between the potential employees. Discrimination in itself is not a problem, nor a crime.

So if I may be allowed to edit your statement a little, then what you are saying is:

Illegal discrimination happens if you make an employment decision based on metrics that have no bearing on the ability to perform the job.

While I think most people will agree with you in this, the question is still which metrics have a say on the ability to perform a job.

The assumption that whoever still has a job was found valuable enough in their job that they were to laid off is a sound one, and by restricting applicants to this criteria one should be sure of getting a person able to perform the job in question.

The assumption that whoever was laid off is not able to perform the job does not follow of course. But with a large amount of applicants, the job of sorting through the unemployed applicants and discriminating between those who can perform the job well and those who can't, becomes very resource demanding.

While I could join you in condemning the businesses that has 'current employment' as a hiring criteria, I'm can't say I wouldn't have done the same. And if it turns out no good or affordable candidates are found within the 'current employment' group, then the search would necessarily be expanded to those who do not match the 'current employment' criteria.

Also note what Fugitive Sisyphus said:

If a company only hires already employed people, those people's old jobs now become available.

All in all, I'm not sure if discrimination based upon the criteria of 'currently employed' is a problem for society that should be made illegal. It is a logical decision to take by businesses to save resources going through an unusually large applicant pool. Of course the individuals who are not currently employed will be ranked lower than those who are, and will find that to be problematically, but businesses can not continue to trade already employed people back and forth forever. If an already employed person gets a new job, an unemployed person must necessarily step in to take his old job.

 

[Mise]

If I may nitpick a little, I would argue that definition 3 of discrimination is the more correct one:
Thus, while choosing which person to hire, one has to discriminate between the potential employees.

You're equivocating on the two meanings. Clearly, the word "discrimination" has different meanings in different contexts; it's like saying "the bible says 'man is the pinacle of god's creation', therefore women are beneath men."

But in any case I don't think this is a substantial part of your argument, so it doesn't really matter.

If I'm allowed to make this definition, then what you are saying is:
While I think most people will agree with you in this, the question is still which metrics have a say on the ability to perform a job.

The assumption that whoever still has a job was found valuable enough in their job that they were to laid off is a sound one, and by restricting applicants to this criteria one should be sure of getting a person able to perform the job in question.

The assumption that whoever was laid off is not able to perform the job does not follow of course. But with a large amount of applicants, the job of sorting through the unemployed applicants and discriminating between those who can perform the job well and those who can't, becomes very resource demanding.

While I could join you in condemning the businesses that has 'current employment' as a hiring criteria, I'm can't say I wouldn't have done the same. And if it turns out no good or affordable candidates are found within the 'current employment' group, then the search would necessarily be expanded to those who do not match the 'current employment' criteria.

This is the same argument that JH made. It's still flawed. I mean, you admit that arguing that someone laid off is not able to perform the job is clearly flawed reasoning, but then you say that it's okay to use this clearly flawed reasoning, as long as there are enough people applying? If I discriminate based on the length of someone's earlobes, arguing that someone with earlobes that long would be disruptive to the team, then it's okay to do this, so long as I have 100 applicants and only 10 openings? Anyone with a Muslim sounding name should be excluded, because they have to fast during Ramadan, which is usually the time of the compulsory annual company barbeque?

I mean, what kind of ridiculous criteria would you be willing to place on applicants, for the sake of operational expediency in busy HR departments? I'm soooooo sorry that HR departments might actually have to, you know, do their jobs, and filter out applicants based on reasonable criteria for employment! Maybe another criteria would be, please don't apply before 10am (too early), between 12pm and 2pm (lunch time) and after 4pm (gone home by now), just to make HR workers' lives a little easier?

Also note what Fugitive Sisyphus said:

All in all, I'm not sure if discrimination based upon the criteria of 'currently employed' is a problem for society that should be made illegal. It is a logical decision to take by businesses to save resources going through an unusually large applicant pool. Of course the individuals who are not currently employed will be ranked lower than those who are, and will find that to be problematically, but businesses can not continue to trade already employed people back and forth forever. If an already employed person gets a new job, an unemployed person must necessarily step in to take his old job.

Yes, but the rate at which the applicant pool diminshes (i.e. the rate at which unemployment falls) is affected by the presence of such discriminatory actions! If people are actively avoiding recruiting newly unemployed people, and are picking those already employed first, it reduces the rate at which unemployed people can get back into work (since it will take longer for them to do so). In otherwords, it increases unemployment.

1) the applicant pool is size S
2) the applicant pool diminishes at rate r_normal
3) X occurs when there is a large applicant pool (S > some value Sx)
4) X acts to reduce the rate at which the applicant pool diminishes; i.e. rx < r_normal
5) therefore, when the size of the applicant pool is greater than Sx, X acts to increase unemployment above the level it would otherwise be without X.

 

[wolfigor]

Personally, I work on the assumption that all discrimination is bad and should be illegal, and something is discrimination if you make an employment decision based on metrics that have no bearing on the ability to perform the job.

The act of choosing one person for a job is, by definition, an act of discrimination.
One discriminates which person will be more useful to the company, one discriminates on the ability to perform the job.

From a certain point of view the fact that a candidate already has a similar job and survived the large number of layoff during recession, it's in itself a proof of his/her ability to perform the job.
Maybe not the best metric, but an objective metric.

Sometime racial/religious/gender metrics (or discrimination if we want) could be justified.
Imagine one needs to hire a sales manager for Iceland (just an example, any country/race applies).
Obviously a person with understanding of Icelandic culture, somebody that can best fit with the potential customers, is preferred.
In this case restrict the interviews only to people from Iceland may not be an unfair discrimination.

However what can be the limit for a "fair discrimination"?

Anyone with a Muslim sounding name should be excluded, because they have to fast during Ramadan, which is usually the time of the compulsory annual company barbeque?

This is exactly the example I was looking for! (thank you).
From some point of view the Muslim people in this example will badly integrate with the rest of the employees.
If a company is looking to keep a small homogeneous and close knit team, maybe is a fair metric to exclude those people with less chance to deeply merge with the rest of the group.

I mean, what kind of ridiculous criteria would you be willing to place on applicants, for the sake of operational expediency in busy HR departments? I'm soooooo sorry that HR departments might actually have to, you know, do their jobs

Hiring a person and then discovering it was a wrong choice is a huge cost for a company.
Some metrics are used only to filter out all people with less probability to be a good match with the role and the company, thus reducing the risk for the company to hire the wrong candidate.

Ideally we should interview every possible person, multiple times, and trying-out several of them for some time, etc.
However such a process would be too expensive, and in most cases practically impossible.
Lets also remember that hiring interviews take the time of some of the company workers, time that is taken away from actual work (i.e. costs to the company).
For this reason only a small group of candidates should reach interview stage, and all of those candidates should be a good match for the role (filtered out).

Just by a coincidence, in 10 minutes from now, I'll have to interview a candidate for a job in my company.

I hope HR filtered out correctly

 

[Justin Cray]

A quick comment on Germany: all of the country's growth right now hinges on China's growth. If China's housing bubble bursts Germany will go down the drain too. Question is of course if the bubble can burst while they are still running state capitalism.

Content for the OP: couldn't you ask a friend to set up a fake company that employs you?

 

[Mise]

@wolfigor: You seem to be one of those I previously described as "genetically predisposed to supporting completely irrational and unethical employment practices in the name of capitalism and 'freedom'". It doesn't appear as though there is any justification ridiculous, spurious, or trivial enough to be dismissed by an employment tribunal, so I doubt any of my arguments would "work" on you. As such, I shalln't touch your post with a 10 ft pole...

 

[Tee Kay]

Discrimination is okay if they are different!

Wait... there are actually people who believe this...

 

[wolfigor]

@wolfigor: You seem to be one of those I previously described as "genetically predisposed to supporting completely irrational and unethical employment practices in the name of capitalism and 'freedom'". It doesn't appear as though there is any justification ridiculous, spurious, or trivial enough to be dismissed by an employment tribunal, so I doubt any of my arguments would "work" on you. As such, I shalln't touch your post with a 10 ft pole...

Please, I should have made explicit I was playing the "devil's advocate" and trying to bring some concepts to their extreme to promote an interesting discussion.
In some special cases what is unethical could be rational (e.g. the Icelandic candidate to sell in Iceland).

If you re-read my post with this in mind, it may look different.
My point was: Selecting one person from a large pool is, in itself, an act of discrimination. What is the fair limit for this "discrimination"?


Working in the technology industry, the only "discrimination" I can see is based on knowledge, experience, and technical expertise: Race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and sense of fashion, are completely irrelevant in my world.
The only exception is for sales people who have much more "points" if they belong to the same country of their target markets.

 

[JerichoHill]

Hmm. On second thought, J_H's input changes perspective here; we can't employ everybody and we can't interview them all either. Some sort of narrowing factor is necessary.

The only narrowing factor that'd be 100% fair, I think, would be a drawing. The company decides how many people it wants to interview and then draws that number from the pool.

Of course, there are some issues; some may be more qualified than others. But, since you can't interview them all to find that out...

Or make a ratio of employed to unemployed people selected for interviewing, close to 50/50, to keep opportunity equal. Arguably there should be a skewing toward unemployed, however, as they don't already have a job.

If it is in the company's best interest to higher the best suited for the job, why would you think they would want to use a signal-less measure of random-ness? They wouldn't. They would decide based on rules that are useful, but not always correct, generalizations.

Any sort of skew-ness done by random lottery towards a type of class, as you propose towards those unemployed, would (a) not be random and (b) not be equally fair.

@Mise
Should one be allowed to discriminate based on employment status? No.
What makes this different from say, race, age, gender? If its not obvious, those are things we are born as.

 

[Cheetah]

You're equivocating on the two meanings. Clearly, the word "discrimination" has different meanings in different contexts; it's like saying "the bible says 'man is the pinacle of god's creation', therefore women are beneath men."

But in any case I don't think this is a substantial part of your argument, so it doesn't really matter.

No, it doesn't really matter much. It's just a pet peeve of mine; I like to be able to use words in their full meaning, and if 'discrimination' becomes solely synonymous with 'racism', I wouldn't like it much.

But enough about etymology.

This is the same argument that JH made. It's still flawed. I mean, you admit that arguing that someone laid off is not able to perform the job is clearly flawed reasoning, but then you say that it's okay to use this clearly flawed reasoning, as long as there are enough people applying?

Whether or not the practice discussed is 'okay' or not is a question of right and wrong. I said that I would most likely do the same, since it is an efficient and effective way of eliminating a mix of good and bad potential employees and being left with only good potential employees.

However, if I worked in HR I would never admit to using this criteria openly. I would accept all applications, and quickly eliminate those who are not currently employed. This practice is quite a PR blunder whenever it comes out.

Yes, but the rate at which the applicant pool diminshes (i.e. the rate at which unemployment falls) is affected by the presence of such discriminatory actions! If people are actively avoiding recruiting newly unemployed people, and are picking those already employed first, it reduces the rate at which unemployed people can get back into work (since it will take longer for them to do so). In otherwords, it increases unemployment.

1) the applicant pool is size S
2) the applicant pool diminishes at rate r_normal
3) X occurs when there is a large applicant pool (S > some value Sx)
4) X acts to reduce the rate at which the applicant pool diminishes; i.e. rx < r_normal
5) therefore, when the size of the applicant pool is greater than Sx, X acts to increase unemployment above the level it would otherwise be without X.

You make a really good argument here, showing the cost of this practice to society as a whole.

For the businesses however, this practice is most likely cost-effective - or at least appearing to be cost-effective. By hiring from a pool of only provenly good candidates, they can avoid any costs involved with hiring the wrong person (And because the workload for the HR department is lessened, there should now be room for some lay-offs in HR as well... ).

In summary: This practice is costly to society, it is profitable to the businesses, it is hurtful to the unemployed and it is beneficial to the already/still employed.

I'm still not sure if this practice should be illegal or not. Isn't headhunting/actively recruiting - assuming one does so with the same criteria and thus only go to people already employed - in a way a bit of the same practice? Would you see it as just as wrong if a company admitted they only actively recruit people who are already employed, and not looking at random applications at all?

 

[Mise]

Please, I should have made explicit I was playing the "devil's advocate" and trying to bring some concepts to their extreme to promote an interesting discussion.
In some special cases what is unethical could be rational (e.g. the Icelandic candidate to sell in Iceland).

If you re-read my post with this in mind, it may look different.
My point was: Selecting one person from a large pool is, in itself, an act of discrimination. What is the fair limit for this "discrimination"?


Working in the technology industry, the only "discrimination" I can see is based on knowledge, experience, and technical expertise: Race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and sense of fashion, are completely irrelevant in my world.
The only exception is for sales people who have much more "points" if they belong to the same country of their target markets.

Okay, fair enough.

In the case of the Icelandic sales job, the Icelandic candidate would have to prove that he had sufficient knowledge of local tastes to be qualified for the job. A Norwegian candidate would have to prove the same thing. If the job was for a sales role in Iceland, a sensible candidate would highlight relevant experience in their CV or covering letter; a sensible recruiter would scan the CV/letter for such experience. A stupid recruiter would assume that an Icelandic person magically has sufficient knowledge of local tastes to qualify, and that a Norwegian candidate has insufficient knowledge of local tastes to qualify. And this is further assuming that the candidates are equally qualified on other fronts, which is obviously never going to happen.

As for forbidding Muslims because you're trying to create a tight-knit organisation of like-minded people, then you can use this to discriminate against anyone. What if you want to create a tight-knit organisation of 80,000,000 white, blue eyed, blonde haired men and women? No Jews, of course Obviously, there are obligations levied on large organisations that aren't expected of small organisations. This is because, to some extent, a company is operating in the public sphere and not in its own little bubble world. There are thus certain responsibilities and obligations that society expects of it. A tiny organisation of 2 or 3 people can legitimately claim, for its recruiting policies at least, that it doesn't operate in the public sphere, especially if it chooses not to advertise its jobs in some public place, or that it operates in public to such a limited extent that the laws shouldn't apply. So yes, it's okay for a self-employed plumber to employ his son rather than a black disabled Muslim lesbian, because his recruiting isn't acting in the public sphere. But it's not okay for Ikea to only higher Swedes or something. The point is, things that are open to the public (shops, restaurants, hotels, public beaches, parks, etc) have different levels of expectations to things that aren't open to the public (private clubs, private beaches, private parks etc).

I'm not a lawyer, but I'd imagine the law already draws the line somewhere... Maybe someone else can enlighten us?

Should one be allowed to discriminate based on employment status? No.
What makes this different from say, race, age, gender? If its not obvious, those are things we are born as.

So it's okay to discriminate against people based on religion, since that's something you can choose to follow? Homosexuality isn't a choice - you're born with it, so you can't discriminate against people who are homosexual. However, you can choose whether or not to be sexually active, and you can choose whether you have sex with men or women, so it would be okay to discriminate against people who choose to sleep with members of their own gender? I wasn't born with cancer, so it's okay to discriminate against cancer patients? I was, on the other hand, born with severe mental retardation, and an IQ of around 65, so it's not okay to discriminate based on that? Afterall, I was born with it!

Saying that discrimination based on X is okay as long as the person wasn't born with X (and, conversely, that discrimination based on X is wrong if the person was born with X) is stupid. Discrimination based on X is wrong if X has nothing to do with one's ability to perform a job.

P.S. I guess I was one of the lucky ones, since I was born unemployed.

 

[Mise]

No, it doesn't really matter much. It's just a pet peeve of mine; I like to be able to use words in their full meaning, and if 'discrimination' becomes solely synonymous with 'racism', I wouldn't like it much.

But enough about etymology.

Whether or not the practice discussed is 'okay' or not is a question of right and wrong. I said that I would most likely do the same, since it is an efficient and effective way of eliminating a mix of good and bad potential employees and being left with only good potential employees.

Right, but so would discriminating based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age...... I could halve the list of potential candidates in one fell swoop, just by eliminating all the women. And, as you said, the assumption that the employed are "good" is really not true...

However, if I worked in HR I would never admit to using this criteria openly. I would accept all applications, and quickly eliminate those who are not currently employed. This practice is quite a PR blunder whenever it comes out.

You make a really good argument here, showing the cost of this practice to society as a whole.

For the businesses however, this practice is most likely cost-effective - or at least appearing to be cost-effective. By hiring from a pool of only provenly good candidates, they can avoid any costs involved with hiring the wrong person (And because the workload for the HR department is lessened, there should now be room for some lay-offs in HR as well... ).

In summary: This practice is costly to society, it is profitable to the businesses, it is hurtful to the unemployed and it is beneficial to the already/still employed.

I'm still not sure if this practice should be illegal or not. Isn't headhunting/actively recruiting - assuming one does so with the same criteria and thus only go to people already employed - in a way a bit of the same practice? Would you see it as just as wrong if a company admitted they only actively recruit people who are already employed, and not looking at random applications at all?

Like I said to wolfigor, if a job is advertised to the public, then it should be truly open to the public. Just like if a shop or golf club is open to the public then it can't turn away gays or blacks.

 

[gangleri2001]

What makes this different from say, race, age, gender? If its not obvious, those are things we are born as.

I was born unemployed. So I think that nobody can discriminate me for being something I was born as.

 

[Murky]

Umm... No its not.

A bad credit score is entirely your own fault, therefore, it isn't unethical at all.

As opposed to say, discrimination based on race, which is entirely not under someone's control and entirely evil, but still should be allowed because of private property rights.

Just because someone is down on their luck does not indicate that they aren't a good candidate.

I also disagree with the idea that people who are in debt or have bad debts would be easier to bribe or show a lack of ethics. It is the richest, greediest people that are the most unethical and thus more likely to take payment in exchange for looking the other way. There are many people who have poor credit that have a strong work ethic.

Often times a person's bad credit is the result of something beyond their control like a sudden illness in their family. College students often fall into debt traps too. What these sort of filters do is make it more difficult for people to get a job and out of debt.

 

[wolfigor]

In the case of the Icelandic sales job, the Icelandic candidate would have to prove that he had sufficient knowledge of local tastes to be qualified for the job.

True, in reality a recruiter will not really look at the ethnicity but at the work experience in the target market, knowledge of culture, language, etc).
The Icelandic candidates will have language/culture/etc. knowledge by default.

However some specific markets are more "accessible" to locals, meaning (from the abstract example) that Icelandic customers will feel more at ease and may trust more an Icelandic sales person than someone from Kenya or India.
Now, in reality Iceland is very open minded, but in some other countries things are different.

In any case, I admit, my example was faulty.

As for forbidding Muslims because you're trying to create a tight-knit organisation of like-minded people, then you can use this to discriminate against anyone.

True, but it can make sense for a small company or for very special cases.
For example I tend to be a bit irritated to go to Japanese restaurants in Europe and don't find anybody that could put together two words of Japanese.
I could see that a Japanese restaurant may request to hire only Japanese people to build a very authentic Japanese experience.

Apart from very special cases most of companies will not create really discriminatory rules because those rules will be irrational and needlessly reduce the pool of good candidates.
At the same time I find myself uneasy with "affirmative action" type of rules that are discriminatory in nature and do not help to have a fair competition between candidates to the same job.

Going back into topic I did try to see the reasoning behind not hiring unemployed people, but still it feels a rather odd requirement.

Not only it's odd, but to some extent it may be counterproductive for the company because it may be more expensive for a company to hire somebody that already has a job compared to hire somebody with same level of qualification but unemployed.