As a critical part of a nation-wide project dedicated to employing the individuals who are unemployed and may have lost their homes in the current economic crisis, this petition strongly requests your support by encouraging businesses across the United States to implement policy to employ the unemployed.  Visit www.EmployTheUnemployed.com to learn the details of the full project.

• Unemployment is over 9% across the United States.  Most people know someone who has recently lost their job, either family member, friend or colleague, due to the economy.  (See a dramatic visual representation of this increase in unemployment at http://tipstrategies.com/posts/notebook/.  Push the Play button on the map to see the change over time.)
  

• The national cost is enormous, both in terms of the economy and in terms that are highly personal to the individuals who have lost their jobs and /or homes.  With many States on the verge of bankruptcy and with a Federal deficit that will grow into multiple trillions of dollars over the coming 10 years, it is imperative that we, as individuals, do something.
  
  
• Corporate leaders and business people are taught, in business school and at work, to hire the employed before considering the unemployed.  During a downturn in the economy and an increase in unemployed, skilled and professional workers, this is inappropriate and counter-productive to the well being of the nation and its economy.
  
  
• An uncharted number of employees choose to voluntarily leave their current employer each year to move to a different employer.  The aggregate cost of this movement is immense for the businesses, for the employees and for the government that is left trying to support those who are left unemployed and looking for work. 

In response, we, the undersigned,

1.      Implore businesses everywhere, from local to multinational, to first look at the unemployed in reviewing candidates for employment,

2.      Ask all businesses to pledge to hire, in all possible cases, the unemployed rather than moving a candidate from another business/corporation.  New policy, whether permanent or temporary, internal to the organizations must be implemented.

3.      Implore all HR representatives to use the website www.employtheunemployed.com to identify candidates before resorting to other resources.

4.      Encourage the individual employee to "stay put" with their current employer for a period of at least one year (until 2011) rather than changing employment to another business entity and rely on opportunities for promotion or movement within the organization.