Obama Seeks Help Of Major Companies To Hire Long-term Jobless People

01 Feb 2014

Barack Obama, the President of United States, is asking the help of major corporations in employing the long-term jobless in US back to work. The CEOs of companies such as Walmart, Apple, Boeing and Visa are delivering their commitments to the White House to do their part.

The White House informed that till now, more than 300 companies have committed to this course. Though the unemployment rate has reduced to 6.7 per cent, a continuing problem is the long-term joblessness in the US.

The worrying thing is that the longer a person is out of employment, the harder it gets to find new employment. Companies are not much interested in hiring people who haven’t utilized their skills in a long time or doubt why some other employer did not already snatch them up.

For months now, the Obama administration has been working to resolve this issue, to exact a promise from major corporations to make sure their hiring practices do not show prejudice against long-term jobless in US.

This includes removing the screening methods for candidates which disqualify applicants depending on their present working status. It is also a guarantee that employment ads do not discourage jobless workers from applying.

The White House was unable to state the number of jobless Americans might benefit from the initiative but expected the effects to escalate.

Heading the National Economic Council of the White House is Gene Sperling, who said that they consider this a launch and not the destination, and added that their hope is that as people see the pledge, the meeting with the president, more people will work for the cause.

21^st Century Fox and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp are among the companies taking part in hiring the long-term jobless in US. Sperling stated that he emailed Rupert Murdoch about the initiative, and Murdoch himself wrote back saying that he supported it.

Obama is also planning to sign a presidential memo which directs the federal government to implement the same standards to the US government’s own hiring practices. Also, the Obama administration will designate $US150 million in grants toward partnership programs that mentor, place and retrain unemployed workers.