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WASHINGTON — After two years on the unemployment rolls, Selena Forte thought she’d found a temporary job at a delivery company that matched her qualifications.

But Forte, a 55-year-old from Cleveland, says a recruiter for an employment agency told her she would not be considered for the job because she had been out of work too long. She had lost her job driving a bus. 

“They didn’t even want to hear about my experience,” said Forte. “It didn’t make sense. You’re always told just go out there and get a job.”

Forte, scraping by now as a part time substitute school bus driver, is part of a growing number of unemployed or underemployed Americans who complain they are being screened out of job openings for the very reason they’re looking for work in the first place. Some companies and job agencies prefer applicants who already have jobs, or haven’t been jobless too long.

She could get help from a provision in President Barack Obama’s jobs bill, which would ban companies with 15 or more employees from refusing to consider — or offer a job to — someone who is unemployed.

The measure also applies to employment agencies and would prohibit want ads that disqualify applicants just because they are unemployed.

But Obama’s bill faces a troubled path in Congress, as Republicans strongly oppose its plans for tax increases on the wealthy and other spending provisions. Should the bill fail, Democrats are sure to remind jobless voters that the GOP blocked an attempt to redress discrimination against them at a time when work is so hard to find.

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http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/8128728-418/jobless-seek-protection-against-bias.html

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