CNN exclusive: Obama says Walmart, Apple, others to help jobless

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**Dreadclaw69**

http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/30/politics/obama-tapper-interview/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

(CNN) -- The White House has secured commitments from some of the nation's largest companies to a plan to boost hiring of the long-term unemployed.

"What we have done is to gather together 300 companies, just to start with, including, some of the top 50 companies in the country, companies like Walmart, and Apple, Ford and others, to say let's establish best practices," President Barack Obama told CNN Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper in an exclusive interview.

"Because they've been unemployed ... so long, folks are looking at that gap in the resume and they're weeding them out before these folks even get a chance for an interview," said Obama.

As the economy slowly recovers from the recession, the number of workers who have not found a job for at least six months or more has grown.

"Do not screen people out of the hiring process just because they've been out of work for a long time," said the President.

He will make the formal announcement on Friday.

The move is in line with Obama's State of the Union push to take executive action on initiatives that he does not need Congress to accomplish.

The President proposed in 2011 that Congress prohibit discrimination based on unemployment at companies with more than 15 workers. Bills were introduced in the Senate and House, but little progress was made.

"Will we be able to have more of an impact if we can get Congress, for example, to pass a minimum wage law that applies to everybody, as opposed to me just through executive order making sure that, folks who are contractors to the federal government have to pay a minimum wage? Absolutely," said Obama.

He added that his administration will continue reaching out to the House and Senate.

"But I'm not going to wait for them," the President said.

Critics have said Obama's push for executive action illustrates diminished expectations. But he stressed key accomplishments achieved through Congress during his five years in office, including health care and education.

"In no way are my expectations diminished, or my ambitions diminished. But what is obviously true, is we've got divided government right now. The House Republicans, in particular, have had difficulty rallying around any agenda, much less mine. And in that kind of environment, what I don't want is the American people to think that the only way for us to make big change is through legislation," Obama said.

**Co'tor Shas**

Well that's good news. I haven't seen much of that around here in a while

.

**d-usa**

It's nice to get them to say "yeah, we will make sure to take a look at resumes that have been out of work for a while", but there is zero teeth to this.

"You can't get work if you haven't worked" is a legitimate problem in some areas, just like the whole "you need experience to get hired, but nobody will hire you to get experience" mess people sometimes run into.

**Dreadclaw69**

d-usa wrote:
It's nice to get them to say "yeah, we will make sure to take a look at resumes that have been out of work for a while", but there is zero teeth to this.

"You can't get work if you haven't worked" is a legitimate problem in some areas, just like the whole "you need experience to get hired, but nobody will hire you to get experience" mess people sometimes run into.

That is my concern also. This makes great content-free-feel-good news, but just agreeing to a "benchmark" that you will look at resumes of people who have been out of work 6 months doesn't really do a lot.

**djones520**

Dreadclaw69 wrote:
d-usa wrote:
It's nice to get them to say "yeah, we will make sure to take a look at resumes that have been out of work for a while", but there is zero teeth to this.

"You can't get work if you haven't worked" is a legitimate problem in some areas, just like the whole "you need experience to get hired, but nobody will hire you to get experience" mess people sometimes run into.

That is my concern also. This makes great content-free-feel-good news, but just agreeing to a "benchmark" that you will look at resumes of people who have been out of work 6 months doesn't really do a lot.

It's just another one of those things that he can point at and say "See, I did something" without having really done a damn thing.

And people laughed at Eastwood's empty chair skit...

**Dreadclaw69**

I find it funny that Wal-Mart, often used as the face of evil US capitalism is being used for this too

**daedalus**

I can't speak for Ford or most of these other companies, but most of the positions you could get at Walmart or Apple probably aren't worth having to begin with.

**Ouze**

Dreadclaw69 wrote:
That is my concern also. This makes great content-free-feel-good news, but just agreeing to a "benchmark" that you will look at resumes of people who have been out of work 6 months doesn't really do a lot.

Of course, if he had "done something" with teeth in it, the same damn people in this thread saying he did nothing meaningful would be breaking their fingers to post about socialism and jackboots.

**Dreadclaw69**

Ouze wrote:
Dreadclaw69 wrote:
That is my concern also. This makes great content-free-feel-good news, but just agreeing to a "benchmark" that you will look at resumes of people who have been out of work 6 months doesn't really do a lot.

Of course, if he had "done something" with teeth in it, the same damn people in this thread saying he did nothing meaningful would be breaking their fingers to post about socialism and jackboots.

Because that is a common theme for d-usa and myself......

**Ouze**

OK, I'll concede my "same people" comment might have been off the mark but I think the sentiment still stands. Anything that would have involved a tax credit or something along those lines is going to require some congressional approval, yes?

**Medium of Death**

Surely the point of this is by targetting some of the places like Walmart and Apple, is that you really don't need experience to work at their low level positions. These places probably train their new starts regardless of their experience anyway.

One of the guys at Uni was refused a job stacking shelves at Tesco because he had no experience of stacking shelves. Refusing minimum wage or bottom tier jobs because of lack of experience is ridiculous.

**nkelsch**

Most out of work 'professionals' I know refuse to take a pay cut and would rather be unemployed at 80k then take a job making 50k.

For more entry-level stuff, I think that is somewhat reasonable to give people benefit of the doubt, but there will be worry about if they can 'hack it' working again after not working for so long. Work is not easy, especially at the low-end of the spectrum.

This is an un-enforceable mandate. Maybe if there was some sort of incentive for companies to hire people who are drawing unemployment or something.

**hotsauceman1**

d-usa wrote:
It's nice to get them to say "yeah, we will make sure to take a look at resumes that have been out of work for a while", but there is zero teeth to this.

"You can't get work if you haven't worked" is a legitimate problem in some areas, just like the whole "you need experience to get hired, but nobody will hire you to get experience" mess people sometimes run into.

Its like those jobs that ask for Barista Experience. But You cant get them because you need to be experianced as a Barista, but you cant get one

**Seaward**

Medium of Death wrote:
Refusing minimum wage or bottom tier jobs because of lack of experience is ridiculous.

Unless you have a big ol' applicant pool filled with experienced workers competing for those jobs.

It's a recruiter's market.

**Jihadin**

Is it a living wage though?

**d-usa**

Seaward wrote:
Medium of Death wrote:
Refusing minimum wage or bottom tier jobs because of lack of experience is ridiculous.

Unless you have a big ol' applicant pool filled with experienced workers competing for those jobs.

It's a recruiter's market.

Some places automatically filter out a lot of resumes automatically. So there might be instances of somebody being more experienced or more qualified who still gets cut automatically because he's been out of work longer.

Situations like that could be something that this would address.