Reference no: EM133238951

Assignment - Hiring Policy Discrimination of the Unemployed Presentation

Topic - Discrimination of the Unemployed

Make a Presentation - Discrimination Against the Unemployed

Thinking Ethically

IS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE UNEMPLOYED ETHICAL?

Imagine that your job includes identifying qualified applicants to fill job openings at your company. As you compare two résumés, you see that the applicants' experiences are similar, except that one applicant was working until a month ago, while the other's last job ended a year ago. How will you choose between them?

Reports and some research suggest that some companies are more likely to choose the candidate who was employed until recently. Some job advertisements have even specified that the company will not consider the long-term unemployed. Practical thinking may be behind the practice: if you assume that someone who has been out of work for a long time has been job hunting, you might suspect that other employers have found reasons not to hire him or her. It seems efficient not to repeat the process of uncovering those problems, whatever they might be.

In most states, the practice is legal, despite some efforts to pass laws against it. At the same time, however, it creates conditions that strike many people as unfair and even cruel to those who are already struggling.

Following the severe recession of 2008, the short-term unemployment rate has returned to levels experienced before the recession. But for those out of work for at least 27 weeks, the unemployment rate is more than twice as high. Working-age men have been hit disproportionately hard, as job losses were severest in male-dominated industries, especially in jobs requiring less than a college education. The share of men no longer even trying to find jobs has been growing, which has implications for society as a whole.

In response to these concerns, volunteers with the Society for Human Resource Management have developed guidelines to encourage hiring policies that do not discriminate "based solely on their unemployment status." The Obama administration urged businesses to pledge not to discriminate against the unemployed, and several hundred have signed the pledge, including Apple, Gap, General Motors, and Walt Disney Company.

Questions -

1. If an employer's hiring policies give preference to those who are already employed, what is the impact on (1) the company's performance; (2) workers seeking jobs; and (3) the communities where a company operates? Based on the impact of these policies, would you say they are ethical? Why or why not?

2. Apply the ethical value of fairness to these policies: is it fair to discriminate against the long-term unemployed? Is it fair not to let employers choose employees with a track record of holding a job? What hiring policy best achieves fairness?