I recently participated in a LinkedIn poll on discrimination in the job market. The question was “What type of discrimination, if any, is prevalent in today’s job market?” The answers were “younger, older, women, race/ethnicity, and unemployed”. The final answer from an overwhelming number of participants was “older”, with “unemployed” coming in second. It broke down into 50% for older, 26% for long term unemployed, 12% for race/ethnicity, 7% for women, and 5% for younger job seekers. This shows that the older and longer term unemployed are finding this current job market especially brutal and unforgiving.

In 1967 the Age Discrimination in Employment Act was signed which protects people 40 years or older from age discrimination in the workplace. It applies to companies that have 20 or more employees, including government employees. The protections include apprenticeship programs, job notices and advertisements, pre-employment inquires, and benefits.

But even with these laws in place, it still doesn’t stop the rampant ageism that continues every day. Stereotypes are deeply engrained. Older workers are seen as being slower to change, even though many older workers are actually very open to change and are quite tech savvy. Employers think they’ll be hired for only a short time and after they’ve gone through training will leave the company to retire, even though people are postponing retirement for many reasons.
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