Roughly 16.8 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last three weeks as coronavirus takes its toll on the economy.

The time of uncertainty and chaos has created an opportunity for direct-sales companies, which rely on a network of distributors, to recruit new sellers.

Sales representatives from Young Living, Mary Kay, and Younique told Business Insider that they've seen increased interest in their products, as well as interest from the newly unemployed looking to make money.

One former seller said these types of companies are using "predatory tactics" and capitalizing on people's growing fear and uncertainty.

Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

As Americans started to adhere to lockdown orders in mid-March, an Instagram meme account that caters to fans of shampoo seller Monat was sending out encouraging messages to its network of distributors.

One post quotes Stuart MacMillan, Monat's CEO, saying, "Just because you have to stay home doesn't mean you have to stay where you are at." Another reads, "Idk who needs to hear this, but being grateful for a home-based income isn't being rude or taking advantage of what's happening in the world."

Some Monat partners are even sharing tips on how to create a face mask using the brand's canvas bags.

Monat is one of many direct-sales companies that have adopted new messaging amid the coronavirus pandemic. They're attracting both individuals looking to buy products and prospective distributors for those products, at a time when most stores and restaurants have been forced to close by shelter-in-place orders and social distancing recommendations. Sales representatives for Monat declined to speak with Business Insider due to a company policy preventing market partners from speaking to the media.

Direct-sales companies — also called network-marketing or multi-level marketing companies — often sell products like essential oils, skincare products, and diet supplements, and employ networks of distributors who work from home and set their own hours. Distributors are typically promised a cut of the profits made from their personal product sales, as well as the sales of any distributors they recruit. Products are shipped directly to consumers, a convenience for both parties and an easy way to prevent potential community spread of the coronavirus.

Because they can continue their work mostly unhindered, these companies are taking this opportunity to promote their businesses as a safe alternative.

"The companies are so desperate to get people to join now, so they've really amped up their recruitment," Emma Rose told Business Insider. Rose is a former network-sales distributor who now hosts "The Anti-MLM Podcast." She said, "They're counting on the fact people are scared and looking for something to help them. They're all selling promises."

Sales representatives for companies like Young Living, Limelife, Mary Kay, and Younique told Business Insider they've fielded a swell of newfound interest from recruits who have quickly found themselves jobless and in need of supplemental income. Roughly 16.8 million Americans have filed for unemployment in the last three weeks, and economists expect that number to hit 20 million by the end of April.

An investment in 'financial freedom'

Recruiting efforts often take the form of Facebook posts and Instagram Live videos. Recently, the messaging has been framed around people's biggest worries during the pandemic and the looming economic recession, Summer Sanders, a 36-year-old mother living in Texas, said.

Sanders is one of the moderators of the Facebook group "Sounds like MLM but ok." The group has more than 160,000 members who share sales experiences gone bad and vent about Facebook posts from long-lost classmates trying to sell their work-from-home lifestyle. Sanders told Business Insider that she's seen a "huge uptick" in posts from distributors, who often try to harness the panic that can accompany tragedies and disasters as a sales tactic to encourage people to join their ranks.

The dozens of examples of this messaging found on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — and posted in the Reddit thread, r/antiMLM — show just that.

A Facebook post promoting Arbonne, a company that sells a line of vegan skincare, cosmetics, and nutrition products, reads: "People are FREAKING out ... If you're looking for me, I'm just over here hanging out, building my germ free multi-million dollar global business from home."

A photo posted on Facebook shows bottles of LimeLife's lemon drop hand sanitizer, along with the caption: "What if I told you I knew where you could get some hand sanitizer- since ya know.. coronavirus and all."

A distributor for Inteletravel, a travel advisory network-sales company, took to Facebook to recruit sellers despite a massive drop in traveling amid the pandemic.

Emily Green, a sales rep for essential oils company Young Living, said that she's experienced a "sense of urgency in getting access to these products." She said that because of the uncertainty in other fields that may have been more stable, potential sellers are thinking: "Maybe it is time to try something new.'"

Distributors for multiple brands told Business Insider that one of the biggest advantages of their jobs is the ability to work from the comfort of their own homes. This has proven to be an especially lucrative perk while the majority of the country is homebound.

Monat market partners have been promoting a record number of new consumers and new distributors, celebrating March as the company's third-biggest month in history. A spokesperson for Monat could not confirm these claims, and the social media posts have since been deleted. The company reportedly raked in nearly $400 million in revenue last year.

"I'm making more sales than I did before," Adrian Elia, an independent seller for makeup company Younique, told Business Insider. She said her customers are "seeing the perks to what I do, how it's benefiting me, and what it could do help them as well. ... The only backlash I've ever received is from someone who doesn't believe in network-marketing companies."

Elia's sentiment echoes a trend within the industry that Rose, the former distributor turned podcaster, explained to Business Insider: "When you're in an MLM, you're taught that everyone else on the outside is just haters."

Network-sales businesses are often derided by critics as pyramid schemes, but lauded by their members as ways to work on your own schedule or become your own boss. To join the distribution networks of most these companies, a person only needs to purchase an initial package of the company's inventory, which can range anywhere from $99 to $6,000. Elia described it as "investing in a business that could become an empire for $99 — you can turn that into financial freedom."

Some brands — such as athleisure company LuLaRoe, skincare company Rodan + Fields, and Herbalife, a seller of nutritional supplements — have faced multi-million dollar lawsuits stemming from allegations of deceptive marketing practices, sometimes brought by distributors who made large initial investments and got little back from the company in return.

Herbalife, for example, has paid out $235 million over the past six years to settle lawsuits and investigations by the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Capitalizing on a 'recession-proof' industry

Companies that rely on network-marketing often sell health and wellness products. The beauty industry has been often been touted as "recession-proof," and beauty products were one of the only areas during the Great Recession where consumer spending rose.

Now, with so much of daily life being shaken up by the coronavirus, self-care has become a reliable way to cope with any new or recurrent anxieties.

"You're still washing your face, right? People are like, 'You told us we can't touch our face, but I still want to take care of it,''' Lisa Mack, a Mary Kay cosmetics distributor, told Business Insider. "They're stuck at home, and they want to still feel good. People aren't going to a party and buying a party dress. To feel good, they might buy a tube of lipstick."

With more than 20 years of experience selling Mary Kay products, Mack is among the company's top distributors worldwide — and she has one of the pink Cadillacs Mary Kay leases to its elite sellers to prove it. The 57-year-old cosmetics company is one of the largest direct-sales businesses in the world, with more than 2.4 million individual sellers.

Mack told Business Insider her team's product sales have only improved amid the pandemic, and that buyers are still clamoring for Mary Kay's best-selling anti-aging serums, essential oils, and creams and lotions. Although competing retailers may be hindered by the closure of brick-and-mortar factories and stores, Mack said Mary Kay is considered an "essential" business whose production facilities are allowed to stay open despite lockdown measures.

Its unclear if other direct-sales companies and their factories have also been deemed essential businesses, but the distributors Business Insider talked to say there's been no slowdown in the sales and shipments of their products. A spokesperson for Herbalife told Business Insider that while the company is continuing to fulfill orders of its products, it's implemented "customer interaction guidelines" for distributors.

Sales representatives for Herbalife, essential oils company doTerra, and cosmetics brand Avon did not respond to multiple interview requests. Sales representatives for Rodan + Fields told Business Insider they were unable to talk to the media under company policy.

Rose, the former distributor, warned that network-marketing firms are "big on hunting and using their predatory tactics right now. There are so many people who can be taken advantage of now in this climate."