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Unemployment as a cause of unemployability

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Jeysie Diva of Virtual Death from Western Massachusetts Since: Jun, 2010
Diva of Virtual Death
#26: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:18:45 PM

@Tuefel

That's why I would prefer the incentive to be in the form of subsidizing wages or something similar. Any fraud could then be handled by just checking the SSN of the person getting the wages and asking them if they're actually working for the company.

@Maddie

Then it's the reason the person was unemployed that's important, not the actual unemployment itself.

Also, forgot to mention that as for outsourcing, I would simply make it so that an American company has to pay their employees at least American minimum wage regardless of whether they're a domestic or foreign employee or not. No reason to outright ban outsourcing, just make it not worth doing unless there genuinely isn't the skill needed here in the US.

edited 20th Oct '11 8:19:00 PM by Jeysie

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)
MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#27: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:19:33 PM

Also making it illegal to discriminate because you had a bad stretch of employment

Is ineffective. It's almost impossible to prove in a court of law that you were rejected for a job on account of employment status. It's easy to prove things like racial and gender discrimination.

Thorn14 Gunpla is amazing! Since: Aug, 2010
Gunpla is amazing!
#28: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:20:44 PM

Right, I said I'd LIKE that to happen but could never practically be done.

edited 20th Oct '11 8:20:51 PM by Thorn14

USAF721 F-22 1986 Concept from the United States Since: Oct, 2011
F-22 1986 Concept
#29: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:21:41 PM

None of this will get made, though, because companies like having all the power, and politicians like getting elected on corporate funds.

USAF713 on his phone or iPod.
TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#30: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:22:54 PM

It is even worse in Right to Work states where you can be fired something as paltry as your boss didn't like the colour of your shirt. They also do not have any obligation in most of those states to tell you why you were fired. The magic number for unemployment period and your considered worthless to hire regardless of your skill set is 4-6 months.

In a healthy economy that is not so bad. In times like now it is pretty much a death knell for just about any career.

Tom: Yeah it is. Hey why didn't you hire me. Wait for bullshit excuse. As long as you have a provable skill set that fits said job they have no reason to not hire you other then your unemployed.

edited 20th Oct '11 8:24:14 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?
MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#31: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:25:26 PM

It is even worse in Right to Work states where you can be fired something as paltry as your boss didn't like the colour of your shirt.

It has to be defensible though and not linked to any practice of discrimination or illegality. Colorado is a Right to Work state and firing someone because the boss didn't like the color of someone's shirt is incredibly rare because such trivial and frivolous reasons aren't very defensible. (Especially if you don't have things like a standardized/written dress code or uniform for the job.)

Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#32: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:25:49 PM

^ That's basically telling employers that they have to hire the first applicant they get who comes anywhere near fitting the job's criteria.

USAF721 F-22 1986 Concept from the United States Since: Oct, 2011
F-22 1986 Concept
#33: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:29:12 PM

Well, there's really no way to win here. Corps get all the power, unemployment goes up. Unions get all the power, unemployment goes up.

~sigh~

edited 20th Oct '11 8:29:44 PM by USAF721

USAF713 on his phone or iPod.
TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#34: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:31:45 PM

Tom: Also try someone doesn't like you because your political views do not match the companies or your co-workers, you spoke out against an abuse at the company, they don't like your religion, they don't like your hobby, Lots of these happen frequently. Or better yet they falslely accuse you of some act that gets you fired but because of right to hire right to fire your done without any redress.

Maddy: No it doesn't. It means they have to be honest and reasonable and consider honestly qualified people based on their skill sets not their current employment status.

Out of 100 applications how many of those actually meet the criteria? The majority don't pretty much narrows it down quickly.

edited 20th Oct '11 8:32:50 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?
MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#35: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:34:27 PM

No it doesn't. It means they have to be honest and reasonable and consider honestly qualified people based on their skill sets not their current employment status.

And what about the legitimate cases where two applicants all else being equal and one of them was on unemployment loses but not because of that? What if that applicant lost because of say personality or the company liked what the other guy said in an interview?

How do you differentiate that from "These two guys are perfect for the job but this guy's been on unemployment for 8 months so let's pick the other guy"?

TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#36: Oct 20th 2011 at 8:40:03 PM

Quite simply. No one set of experiences is every identical nor is any set of personality traits. Also the test for those pesonality traits are almost always scientifically innacurate personality tests.

Also the common courtesy of a rejection letter and or letter of reccomendation for a different employer is nice if you feel they are only hair breadths away from being your perfect hire.

edited 20th Oct '11 8:41:28 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?
johnnyfog Actual Wrestling Legend from the Zocalo Since: Apr, 2010 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
Actual Wrestling Legend
#37: Oct 20th 2011 at 9:05:23 PM

So, no solutions then? We're all boned.

edited 20th Oct '11 9:05:33 PM by johnnyfog

I'm a skeptical squirrel
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#38: Oct 20th 2011 at 9:07:54 PM

No magic bullet, blanket solutions, no.

And it pretty much does, Teuf. If the employer is open to legal action if the applicant claims that they met the job's requirements, no matter what reason the employer gives for not hiring them, the only way for an employer to be safe from constant lawsuits is to hire the very first applicant that comes close.

edited 20th Oct '11 9:09:47 PM by Madrugada

USAF721 F-22 1986 Concept from the United States Since: Oct, 2011
F-22 1986 Concept
#39: Oct 20th 2011 at 9:09:51 PM

[up][up] If nobody in government cares to get their head out of their ass, then yes, the country is fucked.

edited 20th Oct '11 9:10:18 PM by USAF721

USAF713 on his phone or iPod.
TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#40: Oct 20th 2011 at 9:09:53 PM

Fraid not. This is one of those fugly problems where the common joe is caught in a catch 22 and no one is willing or able to break it.

Who watches the watchmen?
johnnyfog Actual Wrestling Legend from the Zocalo Since: Apr, 2010 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
Actual Wrestling Legend
#41: Oct 20th 2011 at 9:10:51 PM

We're headed for a vastly unequal world, then. Maybe forever.

Lower-skilled jobs are automated, and yet available tech jobs are few in number.

But at least there will always be a need for doctors and...middle school teachers. Great.

edited 20th Oct '11 9:15:06 PM by johnnyfog

I'm a skeptical squirrel
TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#42: Oct 20th 2011 at 9:14:19 PM

Dunno. Hopefully not. I hold out some hope for improvement just not for a while.

Who watches the watchmen?
Jeysie Diva of Virtual Death from Western Massachusetts Since: Jun, 2010
Diva of Virtual Death
#43: Oct 20th 2011 at 9:33:28 PM

I have actually had employers tell me or the agency I went through that they passed over my application because I was out of work too long or too "inconsistent". Though, granted, if they suddenly could be held liable for it, they would stop being so honest.

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)
TuefelHundenIV Night Clerk of the Apocalypse from Doomsday Facility Corner Store. Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: I'd need a PowerPoint presentation
Night Clerk of the Apocalypse
#44: Oct 20th 2011 at 9:42:17 PM

They may also stop using that as an excuse to not hire a qualified employee.

Who watches the watchmen?
Karkadinn Karkadinn from New Orleans, Louisiana Since: Jul, 2009
Karkadinn
#45: Oct 21st 2011 at 6:45:23 AM

I don't feel that this is one of those problems that you can solve specifically by targeting it. It seems more like a side effect of other circumstances that should, themselves, be adjusted.

But yeah, johnnyfog's pretty much right. When employers are getting hundreds or more applications for every opening, they use any excuse to quickly narrow down the pack, even if it actually has no impact on ability to do the job.

This. Nail. Head.

Until you reduce the sheer number of applicants per job opening, employers are always going to find bullshit reasons to reject people. The solution is not to spend a lot of extra time worrying about bullshit reasons, but to create an environment that isn't so lopsided in favor of employers, so that they're not forced to rationalize mass rejections. Creating more jobs is the one way to do that that the left and right seem to be able to agree on, although even then, they can't agree on methodology.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.
Jeysie Diva of Virtual Death from Western Massachusetts Since: Jun, 2010
Diva of Virtual Death
#46: Oct 21st 2011 at 7:39:54 AM

[up]

Well, admittedly, of all the bullshit reasons this one is the most important to get rid of.

The longer someone's unemployed, the greater the cost to both the worker and society. Not just in Unemployment benefits, but in terms of workers suffering emotional and physical unhealthiness from stress (if not worse—heaven knows that giving up entirely and jumping off a bridge is feeling mighty tempting to me, guess that's one way to reduce the unemployment rate) and likely long-term loss of health insurance and thus regular care. Plus all of the employers always only going after recently unemployed people or people switching jobs means we're just playing Musical Chairs instead of actually reducing unemployment.

edited 21st Oct '11 7:40:31 AM by Jeysie

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)
johnnyfog Actual Wrestling Legend from the Zocalo Since: Apr, 2010 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
Actual Wrestling Legend
#47: Oct 21st 2011 at 9:04:02 AM

Nor should we just pile all the blame on employers. There are a lot of factors at play. One big one is overpopulation; the failure of schools (including colleges, who IMO do a half-assed job of realistically preparing people for the job market); technology of course; and weirdo advocates of deflation who think a living wage will stagger the economy.

I'm a skeptical squirrel
Vericrat Like this, but brown. from .0000001 seconds ago Since: Oct, 2011
Like this, but brown.
#48: Oct 21st 2011 at 1:48:42 PM

You know what though? Sometimes unemployment IS the fault of the unemployed. (I am not saying always.) But it is almost never a good thing. It is often neutral, sometimes bad, but almost never good. So a company looks at an item that is almost never good, often neutral and sometimes bad, well, that item is at best neutral leaning towards bad. So if you've got 30 applications for one job as a waiter, do you carefully examine each one? If you do, you're giving up money just by doing that (whatever employee is doing that could be doing something else). The other option is to just mark positive or negative each thing you see on their resume or application in the quickest fashion possible.

That's the problem with setting a law against this. It may not be your fault you got laid off. But who didn't get laid off? People with connections and the best people there. You might be an exceptional employee, but if you got laid off, everyone who didn't probably was either more necessary to the company, or were better at networking. And employers looking for a new employee will see laid off = bad at networking/not the best employee. Maybe your last company would have rather kept you but didn't have the money, but again, if you were laid off then somebody was doing a better job than you, or your job wasn't necessary AND you didn't network sufficiently to avoid it.

Again, none of that is to say it's your fault. Just that an employer shouldn't be barred from considering unemployment when they look at hiring you. It is often relevant.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.
Jeysie Diva of Virtual Death from Western Massachusetts Since: Jun, 2010
Diva of Virtual Death
#49: Oct 21st 2011 at 2:31:39 PM

[up]

Um. No, it's often actually not.

I didn't get laid off because there was something wrong with anything I did, I got laid off because I was the company secretary and the company lost enough money that a secretary was no longer necessary as opposed to piling the extra work from my job on everyone else.

But obviously someone who has an opening for a secretary, they've decided that they need a secretary, so the fact that I got laid off because my old company didn't need one is irrelevant. Nor did my possession or lack of networking or skills or whichever have anything to do with my old company deciding they could get by without a secretary.

And then the lengthiness of my spell of unemployment was due to not being hired despite actively looking for work, again, not due to anything I did.

So a company looking for a secretary that passes me over due to my lengthy unemployment is passing me over for reasons that have nothing to do with my ability to work hard as a secretary. It is, in fact, not at all relevant. Your assumptions just don't make much sense.

edited 21st Oct '11 2:32:15 PM by Jeysie

Apparently I am adorable, but my GF is my #1 Groupie. (Avatar by Dreki-K)
Vericrat Like this, but brown. from .0000001 seconds ago Since: Oct, 2011
Like this, but brown.
#50: Oct 21st 2011 at 3:01:36 PM

OK, let's try again.

College aside, I can think of almost no reason that being unemployed is a GOOD thing.

There are plenty of reasons that it is a neutral thing. Yours could be one of them - your company decided they didn't want a secretary anymore. Maybe a company someone was working diligently and hard for went under. Maybe somebody's boss was a racist. Maybe somebody's boss was in a bad mood. Maybe an earthquake killed off everyone in the company but the unemployed individual. These could all be neutral reasons because while they don't necessarily say anything bad about the unemployed, they don't say anything good either.

There are also plenty of bad reasons one could be unemployed. They do not have a sufficient skill set. They are abrasive. They are often tardy. They are often absent. They steal. They have a difficult schedule to work around. They've been in prison. They have poor hygiene. They have confidence issues. They fall asleep on the job. They come in drunk. They have performance issues.

Maybe 10% of unemployment is "good." Maybe 50% is neutral (I would count this a gross overestimate). Maybe 40% is bad. Get it. If you have resumes and an application the only thing you can really do is assign points to everything you see. Now, is unemployment for no stated reason good or bad? How would I figure this out, I wonder?

10% of 100 is 10. 50% of 0 is 0. 40% of -100 is -40. 10 + 0 + -40 = -30. The numbers in the last sentence are more or less meaningless. I'm just saying, put no value to neutral reasons, and opposite values to good or bad ones. Suddenly, unemployment is statistically a bad thing.

And that's ignoring that most neutral things also have a chance of being bad:

Boss was in a bad mood? Well, a Great employee is probably going to be ok. A good employee might get fired. A bad employee will get fired.

Corporation went under? Enough Great employees keeps that from happening. Good employees are laid off. Bad employees helped pull it down.

I'm not saying that neutral reasons don't exist, just that BAD reasons far outnumber GOOD reasons, so unemployment is statistically bad.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

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