Let’s Keep Legal Protections for Older Employees Strong

The employment ad , for a health technology company, sought a staff attorney with "3 to 7 years (no more than 7 years) of relevant legal experience.” Yes, you read that correctly: no more than seven years of relevant legal experience. It’s a striking stance — employment experience being seen not just as a negative, but as an actual disqualifier.  

The job ad in question resulted in a lawsuit (brought by AARP Foundation) and, subsequently, a ruling by the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that temporarily struck a small but important blow against age-related employment discrimination. However, the court is already reconsidering that decision this fall. Make no mistake, age discrimination in the workplace is alive and well.

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A new AARP study — “Age Discrimination against Older Workers" — finds that, of 3,900 adults (age 45 and up) polled, 61 percent have experienced or seen age discrimination at work. Sometimes it’s apparently built into the application process. Of respondents who have applied for a new job in the last two years, 44 percent report they were asked their age or school graduation year. Although it’s not illegal for employers to seek that information (only to base their hiring decisions upon it), it’s not hard to imagine how, too often, such age-related data is evaluated behind closed doors.

For example, in a recent study, Tulane University researchers sent more than 40,000 résumés to apply for about 13,000 job openings posted online in 12 U.S. cities. They responded to each posting with three different résumés representing a different age group (i.e., younger, middle-aged and senior applicants). Even though all had nearly identical skills, the study found older candidates received far fewer callbacks — anywhere from 20 percent to almost 50 percent fewer — than younger ones. “It’s just age; it doesn’t have to do with experience,” concluded the study’s coauthor.

Employees are getting older, but many hiring practices remain static

Despite the evolution underway in the U.S. workforce and around the world, with older employees comprising a larger and larger percentage of the workforce (not to mention the available labor market), too many organizations continue to view older employees with skepticism or, as in the case above, see the combination of age and experience as an outright deal breaker.