Job ads and hidden age discrimination...

Since the changes to equality laws brought in to support and enable the government to delay the age at which state pensions are paid, there has been an increase in age discrimination employment cases going to court....

I'm not certain that as of today, this is the case. Most people who are affected by the raising of the pension age i.e., those who have no option but to work until they can claim the state pension may well be unemployed , on Job Seekers Allowance or sick and disabled but unable to get sickness benefits that under the last government they were entitled to. When people like myself are at the mercy of job centre demands that we apply for work or face sanctions, this rather than protesting and campaigning becomes the priority.. Those who most need to campaign and protest against injustice have the least time and resources available to do so...just surviving is the priority and I speak from experience.

However, when scanning the job ads I receive daily in my in box, I frequently see illegal attempts on the part of employers to avoid older applicants eg..'This is a young and funky office environment. Feisty I may be , plucky yes....but young and funky I aunt !!! My days of being funky are long gone...although I had my moments …

Employers are in the wording of their ads, trying to avoid older workers and deter them from applying, but they are not as clever as they think. In doing so they leave themselves open to discrimination law, using such terms as energetic, dynamic or asking for a 'recent' graduate...who may of course be a pensioner !!!

Another tactic employers are frequently using is to advertise the vacancy as an apprenticeship. This means paying a lower wage,and the increase in the number of posts advertised benefits young job hunters but not the thousands of older people being forced to work until they drop.

However, as with most arguments , there are two sides and with this as with most cases of the employer versus the employee or job seeker, while it is unwise for employers to use such language in a job ad , it is up to the applicant to prove the discrimination. It is not enough to say that an ad is discriminatory, you have to prove that discrimination is taking place by applying and then proving that you were rejected on the basis of your age ….very difficult to do. This is an almost impossible task since an employer only has to say 'we had many suitable applicants , we are sorry you were not successful on this occasion, but we will keep your details on file ..and it is up to the applicant to prove that it is in the bin....