[jriddycuz]

And this advantage goes to smaller, leaner companies who are not hobbled by policies handed down from on high about who can and cannot be hired.

Laws making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of employment status would only help the organizations who are not already doing it.

[rmc]

Laws making it illegal to discriminate like this would also help the people who are currently unemployed.

[ericd]

Laws that make it illegal to discriminate would not help businesses (they lose the ability to use every signal available to them, and it might become taboo to ask about why one is unemployed, etc), and it will probably result in more discrimination lawsuits from disgruntled interviewees. No one needs more of those.

That said, the stance of some of the companies in the article is silly.