Opportunity is knocking for insurance agents seeking to bring new blood into their agencies. All they need to do is not follow the shortsighted and discriminatory practices of which some employers are being accused.

The discrimination I'm referring to has nothing to do with gender, race or sexual orientation. It's the policy some employers have of seeking to hire only people who are already employed.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently held a hearing examining the impact of this policy where several experts discussed how the practice hurts people looking for work. “Some employers may use current employment as a signal of quality job performance,” testified Helen Norton, associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Law. “But such a correlation is decidedly weak. A blanket reliance on current employment serves as a poor proxy for successful job performance.”

Fatima Goss Graves, vice president for education and employment of the National Women's Law Center, called it a “troubling development in the labor market.”

Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project, added, “At a moment when we all should be doing whatever we can to open up job opportunities to the unemployed, it is profoundly disturbing that the trend of deliberately excluding the jobless from work opportunities is on the rise.”

Several experts said that the actions most severely affected minorities, who hold a disproportionate share of the unemployed numbers.

One group of professionals who should understand how tough this economy has been, and remains, is insurance agents and brokers. I've spoken with more than a few who have told me how they've experienced declines in their business because their commercial clients have had to lay off so many workers. And we all know that more than a few brokers and agents—both large, publicly traded firms and smaller, privately held ones—have had to do the same to survive the great recession.

I'm certain many principals have fought to retain those who they felt to be the most capable. I'm also sure there's a few producers who have let go an employee or two that they would hire back in a heartbeat once their business picks up. So when members of the insurance industry hear that there are employers out there looking for new employees, but these firms will only consider those who already have a job, I hope producers just shake their heads and ask, “What are they thinking?”

Indeed, in an industry like ours where so many talk about bringing new blood into the fold, it would appear that this is the perfect opportunity for agents and brokers to put out the welcome mats and say, “Unemployed? We don't care. We know it's tough out there. We're looking for a few capable people and, if you fit, we want you to join us.”

One employer's loss can be another's gain. In this industry that finds it such a challenge to attract new and young members, this would seem to be the perfect occasion to offer a chance to people who have suffered through the woes of long-term unemployment and show the generosity of opportunity many producers talk about every day.

Special Reports /

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