Paul Ryan, a darling of the gut-government crowd, charges $15.00 for his rare “Town Halls” – and had his staff call the cops and seek to have jobless protestors at his local office arrested, see http://www.usnews.com/preview/7-119437-Paul%20Ryan’s%20Office%20Calls%20Cops%20On%20Jobless%20Protesters
One of the ways the Lesser Depression differs from the recessions of the past is that 42% of the unemployed have been unemployed for more than 6 months, and 33% for more than a year, see http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2011/08/04/dems_warn_long_term_jobless_could_derail_recovery_1312477850/
The reality is that there is discrimination against the long term unemployed, even when jobs and training are available. See http://www.stltoday.com/business/columns/job-watch/article_1efa4354-1686-5c9a-855c-e379a2cd527b.html Advertisements for current openings state that only the currently employed will be considered, and, in fact, long term unemployment means no interviews! As if the unemployed person is themself to blame when jobs are outsourced to Mumbai or Singapore, or elsewhere. The actual ratio of unemployed workers to jobs is said to be 4.5:1 in the above-cited article. There are at least 6.2 million people in this situation – while legislation was filed, namely the Fair Employment Act of 2011 to block discrimination against inverviewing the unemployed, not only has this legislation not passed, just how would it be enforced?
I know if I get a chance to submit questions to the candidates for the U.S. Senate, my question would be, “What is your plan to seek congressional action on long term unemployment and job training?”
After all, these long term unemployed Americans tend to be over 55, or to lack the skill sets for the jobs available. Both an increase in training programs and in jobs are actually needed to address this problem, and reduce the alarmingly large number of long term unemployed in the American population.
Even in our state, there are about 80,000 unfillable technical jobs due to lack of trained employees – wouldn’t ensuring training for those willing to learn be a smarter investment then bankrolling companies who take the money and run? Creating one stable family and one taxpayer at a time through training makes a whole lot of sense at least, to me.
If anything I think I’d be biased the other way all things being equal. If I have two people I’m considering to hire and one already has work I’d be inclined to help the person without work by giving him a job.
I could have included TEN links about this. The reason seems to be a kind of “what must be wrong with you” or “you are a discard” or worse yet, treating the unemployed like meat products on the shelf past their expiration dates, good only for the garbage can. Great harm is being done in this way, and training programs are not only being cut, but were never “large enough” in slots, nor targeted for training for the unfilled jobs that are actually out there.
…and this isn’t the first time I’m hearing of this practice. I just can’t understand why the assumptions in your second sentence are prevalent, especially in this economy.
The other major reason employers refuse to consider unemployed people for jobs is in order to cut down on the number of applicants. With 5 jobless people for each job, requiring current employment is one easy way to winnow the pile. (And assuming that the unemployed are lazy or have lost their skills helps to rationalize the practice.)
Any way we can enact or advocate laws requiring preference in the other direction, or at least manipulate the tax code to favor it? I’ve been applying unsuccessfully for jobs in the National Park Service and have been told that the law requires they offer jobs to veterans, of which I am sure there are many unemployed these days, first. Seems we can mandate unemployed preference the same way, plus to me it’s a no-brainer in the right thing to do department.
America no longer has the ability to sustain full employment. The economic gains of the past three decades have been generated by building technology that multiplies the productivity of each worker. We have simultaneously concentrated the wealth of America in the top 1/2 of 1 percent of its population.
The result is that we have seized-up the consumer-driven economic engine that has energized us since the Great Depression. There simply cannot be enough demand to keep everyone working — we’ve assured that by making our workers so much more efficient than they were a generation ago.
The wrenching transformation goes to the core of our culture. In a society that cannot provide full employment, we cannot continue to use labor as our primary mechanism for wealth distribution. Working hard is no guarantee of wealth, and those who have acquired great wealth have not necessarily worked hard.
These fundamental changes must permeate through our culture, and there will be waves of discrimination, discontent, scapegoating, and prejudice as they do.
We face at least a generation of hard, difficult, and contentious conflict while we seek a sustainable wealth-distribution paradigm.