IES Blog

Staffing industry creates best practices for hiring long-term unemployed

Posted on February 3rd, 2014 Read time: 1 minutes

The Whitehouse joined with several major staffing industry leaders to put together a best-practices list for recruiting and hiring the long-term unemployed.

According to the Whitehouse and those who signed the list, they are "committed to inclusive hiring practices and pledge to remove barriers that may prevent qualified long-term unemployed job seekers from applying or being fully considered for jobs at our companies."

The best practice list includes four key points. The first is to ensure advertisements do not discourage or discriminate against unemployed individuals. The second is to review procedures in order to ensure unemployed individuals are not disadvantaged in the hiring process. Additionally, those who signed the list plan to make a point of casting "a broad net" to ensure all applicants are considered. The final procedure planned by the group is to share best practices with other companies.

In the last jobs report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of long-term unemployed stood at 3.9 million, which accounted for 37.7 percent of all unemployed. It also added temporary help services in the professional and business services industry expanded by 40,000 jobs in December.

Joining the growing force of contract workers is one way of finding full-time employment again. Additionally, by hiring temporary workers, companies can try out employees before they are hired, ensuring a good fit with the business.

Related Articles