The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is looking into discriminatory practices that hamper hiring opportunities for unemployed job-seekers -- a situation that has worsened since the recession exploded into a full-blown unemployment crisis.

At a hearing Wednesday in Washington, a chorus of experts called out staffing firms, recruiters and businesses for what EEOC Chair Jacqueline Berrien contends is the "emerging practice of excluding unemployed persons from applicant pools." 

Algernon Austin, with the Economic Policy Institute, told the hearing plays a major role in disproportionately higher unemployment rates among African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans.

Unlike many other forms of discrimination, there's a fair amount of indiscretion when it comes to   favoritism shown to job-seekers who are already employed.

The EEOC cited the research of Helen Norton, an associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Law, who found "publicly advertised jobs...with the explicit restriction that only currently employed candidates would be considered."

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