Main Street Alliance: Why “Get a Job, Any Job” is Bad Policy for Businesses and Workers

Posted by: David Borris, Leanne Clarke and Kelly Conklin on Nov 11, 2010

As leaders of the Main Street Alliance, a national network of small business coalitions, we want to dispel a myth about Americans struggling with long-term unemployment and the businesses that may hire them.  With increasing frequency, we hear politicians, pundits, and people on the street blaming the long-term unemployed for their own plight.

“Get a job – any job.  Don’t wait for a good one, take anything you can get.”  So goes the refrain.  But that advice denies the reality of this recession and its impact on the job market.  And it obscures the realities of how employers go about hiring people.

There simply aren’t enough jobs out there for the vast majority of the unemployed.  There are so few jobs available that even if someone could wave a magic wand and instantly fill every job opening with someone who is unemployed, four out of five of the jobless would still be out of work.  This is a staggering fact.  It boggles the mind how those crying for the unemployed to just get back to work can ignore it.

Equally important, those telling the unemployed to “get a job, any job” fail to grasp the realities of hiring.  Employers want the most qualified candidate for the job, not the most over-qualified candidate.  We don’t want someone who truly wants, and would be a better fit in, a different job.  Even if the over-qualified candidate might really want this job in the short term, they’re going to keep looking for that better fit and, as soon as it shows up, they’ll be gone.

The costs associated with employee turnover are significant and businesses, especially small businesses, can’t afford to waste resources on another job search and training someone yet again.  We want to hire the right person the first time – someone whose skills match the needs of the job, someone who’s going to be happy in that job, not anxious for something else to come along.

We are certainly aware that in the current economic climate, the vast majority of the unemployed are more than willing to settle for jobs beneath their level of qualification.  We are sympathetic to their plight and are striving to help them in all ways that make good business sense.  But hiring over-qualified people when there are five unemployed people for every job opening is not the solution to this crisis.

Rather than blaming the long-term unemployed for their situation, and rather than suggesting that they take jobs for which they are not likely to be hired anyway, the real solution is for Congress to put partisan politics aside and do what’s right to support the unemployed and help restore economic growth. Extending unemployment benefits – a lifeline for the long-term unemployed and one of the most effective policies for injecting money into local economies and generating economic activity – is an important place to start.

David Borris is the owner of Hel’s Kitchen Catering in Northbrook, IL
Leanne Clarke is the owner of Haleyanne Jewelry in Seattle, WA
Kelly Conklin is the owner of Foley-Waite Associates in Bloomfield, NJ