http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/04/disturbing-job-ads-the-un_n_600665.html

There has been a trend where, if you have been laid off, you are NOT to apply to a job being offered.  Looks like a sure way, if it becomes a norm to cause someone to go into a fail spiral.

There should be a law against that.

It's disgusting that today's companies rather "steal" other companies' employees than considering unemployed people.

While not the most politically correct or polite business practice, and it may not win you any friends, there is a certain amount of logic to it; especially in the current job market.

Personally, I would avoid a blanket policy that avoids hiring the unemployed; but knowing that companies tend to lay off low performers first, high performers who are unemployed tend to be recruited by their networks fairly quickly, and the longer someone is unemployed the more their skills have degraded and they have developed bad habits, I can understand why a company would be reluctant to hire unemployed (especially long term unemployed) people.

Likely they'll know between people who were caught in unfortunate circumstances and those who were laid off as low performers (as HappySquirrel said), but it would be idiotic for a company to have a blanket policy against it as you could miss people who are incredibly qualified for no good reason.

doesn't that breach Equal employement rights laws. Or doesn't the US have them. Because we have laws here in Australia were its against the law to not recruite someone because of race, background(other than criminal), reglion, disability, size or age. But that person must be capable of doing such task.

Oh come on. That article is nearly a year old and is based on just a few job postings.. to call this a trend is a bit of overstatement, no?

Seems odd...wouldn't you consider all candidates who meet the required skills, as opposed to just those that have the skills and are employed?  It's like you're artificially paring down the number of people you have to interview, because you're lazy...

A little story.

My buddy from college told me this a few days ago actually.  His bosses best friend had been unemployed for the past years.  He has been looking diligently for the past 2 years for a job (he has a ton of experience a masters) and has not found much at all.

My buddies boss decides to give him a temporary position in the company and boom, two months later he scores a big interview with a company (who he had applied to a month earlier through a temp agency and he was told they were not interested in hm).  A week after that, he has a job and a damn good one at that.

When I was unemployed, the first piece of advice I was given by a temp agency was to get a job anywhere I could get hired.  She told me that many of their clients refuse to even look at resumes of people who are not currently employed (regardless of what the current employment is).  She said that this was one of the easiest ways for most of these companys to shift through the thousands of applications they are receiving for jobs.

While I do not agree with the practice in general, when receiving literally thousands of applications for a single job, you have to do something to separate out the resumes, and I guess this method is working for them.

A law is in the works against this practice:

http://www.app.com/article/20110321/NJBIZ/103210324/Approved-bill-says-businesses-can-t-exclude-unemployed-want-ads

And yes, it isn't just myself saying it is a trend:

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/02/no-unemployed-need-apply

There's a growing trend of employers refusing to consider the unemployed for job openings, according to a number of people who testified before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on Wednesday. They say that employers are barring the unemployed from job openings, which is particularly unfair to older workers and African Americans because more of them are unemployed.

And Google more:

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1TSNACENUS369&=&q=no hiring unemployed&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=