Huffington Post – With mounting pressure from worker advocates and an online petition, Indeed.com, the Internet’s highest-trafficked job board website, has announced that it will no longer allow job ads that discriminate against the unemployed, a practice that even President Obama has criticized.

“Our policy is to exclude job listings that do not comply with federal or local laws related to discriminatory hiring practices as well as job listings that discriminate against the unemployed,” Sophie Beaurpere, Indeed.com’s director of communications, said in a statement.

Progressive advocacy group USAction used Change.org to gather more than 92,000 Internet signatures to petition the three major online job boards — Indeed.com, Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com — to get rid of job postings that stipulate applicants must be currently employed.

Only a week ago, President Obama said on a radio show those ads “make absolutely no sense,” going so far as to say he supports federal legislation to ban discrimination against the jobless.

The long-term unemployed have found themselves in a bind as they now make up about half of the jobless population — about 6 million people out of work for six months or longer.

The National Employment Law Project has been highlighting discrimination against the unemployed for some time, tracking and collecting ads from major companies.

Read the whole article »