Jo Swinson, Whilst the average age of the population is increasing, it seems likely that ageism is going to become more of an issue. However, there's also an increasing social trend towards a 'compensation culture' whereby people are becoming more likely to (succesfully) carry out proceedings against all manner of discriminatory charges and accusations. With this combination, there's a real danger that a company's efficiency and ability to make resourcing decisions is compromised for fear of being seen as discriminating by age: Whether a younger person is deemed unsuitable for a certain job because they lack the experience or practical knowhow to do it well, or an older person is rejected on the grounds that their skillbase and technological understanding has become a little too behind the times, what measures are being considered to ensure that ageism isn't going to be used as a scapegoat by individuals who are simply bitter that their skills weren't properly suited for a particular job?
Asked by dobbsy99 on Oct 23 2007 6:56:44 PM and supported by 38 members
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You could make that same argument about sex discrimination or race discrimination laws, at the end of the day all it forces employers to do is have some kind of paper trail or evidence that they chose the best person for the job. So for employers with proper recruitment procedures I don’t think it will be a major problem. If they can show fairly objectively why they have made a particular decision then there shouldn’t be a problem. You may be right – it may be that the best person for the job may not be the older applicant but it doesn’t follow that because the other applicant doesn’t get the job then that is age discrimination. But employers in that scenario do need to have a robust framework in place so that they can say: “no it wasn’t that, it was because of these reasons”, rather than just saying: “well we just had to give it somebody else”.