Unemployed Applicants

The New Protected Class

In today’s economic times, a competitive job force embraces workers with various knowledge, skills, abilities, education, and experience levels. Hiring managers attempt to compare and contrast these items when determining the best job candidate for a specific position. With respect to experience, many hiring managers consider long gaps in employment history on the resume or employment application to be a strike against a potential job candidate.


However, due to the high levels of unemployment the country has experienced in the past few years, lawmakers are taking measures to ensure the job candidates who have experienced recent periods of unemployment are still considered viable candidates.·

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the agency that oversees discrimination in hiring practices. Some of the traditional protected classes include race, color, religion, national origin, age (40 and over), disability, military or veteran status, etc. Protected classes were developed from previous anti-discrimination laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), Equal Pay Act, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA).

On April 5, 2012, President Obama signed into law the JOBS Act (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) that is intended to prohibit employers from discriminating against job applicants because they are unemployed. Under the Act, it is “an unlawful employment practice” if a business with 15 or more employees refuses to hire a person “because of the individual’s status as unemployed.” Unselected job applicants will have the right to file a complaint with the EEOC if they are disqualified from consideration due to a recent period of unemployment. The JOBS Act contains the “Fair Employment Opportunity Act of 2011” (FEOA) that treats unemployed job applicants as a protected class under Title VII. The FEOA would make it an unlawful employment practice for an employer or employment agency that:

Fails or refuses to consider or hire an individual based upon his or her status as unemployed.
Instructs an employment agency to disqualify an unemployed individual from consideration, screening, or referral for employment.
Refuses to consider or refer an unemployed individual for a job opportunity.
Publishes advertisements which indicate that unemployed individuals are disqualified or will not be considered for employment opportunities.

Employers are encouraged to look carefully at their hiring methods (especially when viewing recent gaps in employment history) and to assess the role an applicant’s unemployed status has on hiring decisions. There are several remedies that apply within the JOBS Act that include injunctive relief, reinstatement, lost wages, punitive damages, emotional distress damages, and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs. Employers need to use caution when inquiring into the reasons underlying an applicant’s current unemployment status. Remember, anything more than a minimal investigation into an applicant’s current status (i.e. unemployed) may be considered as an influencing factor in the hiring decision. This can expose the employer to liability if the individual is not ultimately considered or hired for a position.{jcomments on}