UK: Most employers refuse to consider hiring people with a criminal record or history of drug or alcohol problems, new research has revealed.The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said its study showed how difficult it will be for the Government to move people from the "core jobless" group into work.
A survey of 750 employers found that almost two-thirds deliberately excluded people with certain characteristics when they were recruiting.
Firms were more likely to consider migrant workers, lone parents or over 50-year-olds than anyone with a criminal record or a history of long-term sickness or homelessness.
Well over half of those questioned said nothing would persuade them to take on someone from the so-called core jobless group.
Many employers said they had endured a bad previous experience of someone from the core jobless group.
John Philpott, chief economist of the CIPD, said: "Widespread reluctance on the part of employers to recruit the core jobless highlights the magnitude of the task facing the Government as it strives to get more economically inactive benefit claimants, especially those claiming Incapacity Benefit, off welfare [social services] and into work.
"Current Government initiatives, such as Pathways to Work, are to be welcomed, but even a relatively slight cooling in the labour market, as now seems underway, is bad news for those at the back of the jobs queue and for ministers who may find it harder to meet their welfare reform objectives.
"As a result the Government will have to reinvigorate its welfare [social services] to work agenda by making greater efforts to both improve the employability of the core jobless groups, and by addressing negative employer attitudes to people in these groups."
By PA 21 August 05
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