Last month, we wrote about the growing trend of alleged discrimination against the unemployed in hiring practices. Specifically, we discussed a recent report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP) in which the agency identified 73 businesses that stated in job postings that job applicants must be currently employed to be considered for the position. Since then, labor advocates have decried the practice as employment discrimination, and have urged employers to change their hiring goals.

In a recent radio interview, President Obama came down firmly on the side of labor advocates, stating that discriminating against the unemployed in hiring "makes absolutely no sense." He noted that, in today's shaky economy, many people are unemployed as a result of a lay-off and not because they underperformed or otherwise deserved to be fired. Refusing to hire or even consider them for employment simply because of their employment status is not fair, he said.

In response to the recent NELP report, several Democrats in the U.S. Congress have proposed new laws that would make it illegal to discriminate against unemployed people when making hiring decisions. Because federal employment laws only prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age or disability, the proposed legislation would create a new sort of 'protected class' for unemployed job applicants.

It remains to be seen whether that legislation will become law. Until then, labor advocates have created several petitions asking Monster.com to stop allowing employers to post job ads if they discriminate against the unemployed. So far, those petitions have had little success.

Source: Huffington Post, "Obama: Discrimination Against Jobless 'Makes Absolutely No Sense'," Arthur Delaney, Aug. 30, 2011