Discrimination Against the Unemployed
Posted August 15th, 2011
It is fairly common knowledge that people who are unemployed have a tougher time finding a job than those who are working because of the stigma attached to being out of work.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, recent research has shown that this bias against the unemployed is not influenced by their skill level or how they lost their job.
In the research, people were asked to judge various pretend job candidates. In the study, the same résumé was shown to two groups of people. One group was told the résumé belonged to someone currently employed; the other group that the résumé belonged to an unemployed person. The groups rated the résumé of the employed person more highly even though it had the same information as the unemployed person.
The groups were looking at the same résumé, but they rated the ability of the employed person higher, based solely on the résumé, than the ability of the unemployed person. And the groups said they would be more likely to hire the employed person.
And it didn’t matter how the job applicant lost his or her previous position, whether he or she was laid off, fired, or left voluntarily: the candidate was still viewed less favorably than a person who was employed, even though all of the applicant’s qualifications were the same. The only way to remove the stigma of unemployment was if the loss of the job could not be connected to the person at all, if, for example, the person lost the job because the company went bankrupt.
The research showed that people make psychological connections to being unemployed that leads to prejudice.
The longer a person has been out of work, the harder it is to find a job – this is also well known. But researchers have thought this was mostly because hiring managers were concerned about skills eroding among the long-term unemployed. But the research showed that even when there is no evidence of a skill downgrade, unemployed job applicants still face discrimination.
It is this psychological stigma attached to unemployment that can help explain why those who are out of work have fundamentally less opportunity of getting back into the working world.
If you’ve been out of work for a long time, working as a temporary for Bayside Solutions can help you show employers that you have the work ethic they seek. We have many short- and long-term – and even direct-hire – positions with some of San Francisco’s best companies. Contact us today and get back to work!
