Despite age-discrimination laws, older workers face a tough time in the recession: by Mary Braid
“I CAN’t believe I’m in a position where my 80-year-old mother
is sending me money,” said marketing executive Caroline Duff. “This
is not where I expected to be at 51.”
Duff is unemployed in a recession that official figures suggest is once again
affecting the overfifties disproportionately, even though laws banning age discrimination
came into effect in 2006.
Duff has worked ever since leaving university. When she was made redundant
from a marketing job in Amsterdam two years ago, she returned to her native
Scotland sure she would easily pick up another job. But it took her 18 months
just to secure a six-month contract. This ended last month and, although the
company wanted to keep her on, the recession made that impossible.
Now Duff is back pursuing every vacancy that comes up and this time it’s
harder because she knows age discrimination is very real and the jobs situation
is also much worse.
“I now know all the words,” she said. “The employers and agencies
say they are looking for someone ‘more dynamic’ or who fits better
with company culture. Others say I’m overqualified.
“One employer even described me as staid to an agency. I’m not the
sensitive type, but I was apoplectic. All these words mean is that they want
someone younger. I could have written the script for that Channel 4 Dispatches
documentary this month.”
The documentary followed the job-seeking efforts of a young yet-to-qualify
accountant Tanne Lloyd-Penny, 25, and her highly experienced chartered accountant
father, Martin, 56. It laid bare the prejudice that still plagues the overfifties
and showed companies are not even bothering to reply to her father’s applications
while his daughter was actively pursued.
Perhaps it’s no surprise then that official figures show that in the last
quarter the number of overfifties unemployed for more than six months rocketed
nearly 30% against 5% among 24 to 49 year olds.
Hazel Oliver, a partner at the law firm Lewis Silkin, said the figures showed
that more overfifties were being made redundant than younger workers and they
are being discriminated against in recruitment.
She said the recession could be a test of age-discrimination laws that didn’t
exist in previous downturns. Other experts are dismayed that the law is being
tested before it has had a chance to change attitudes.
“I might be cynical but I’m not sure how much progress has really
been made,” said Oliver. “There is still this attitude that it’s
not really as morally wrong to discriminate on the basis of age as, say, race.
Employers are going to be less likely to embrace the new law now. The mandatory
retirement age is already being enforced more strictly by companies. It’s
a cheap option for employers. They don’t even have to pay redundancy.”
Though Oliver predicted that progress on age discrimination might stall now,
she said it was also possible many sacked older workers would take legal action.
“In a down-turn and unable to get another job, many people may feel they
have nothing to lose,” she said.
There are no reported cases yet of tribunal claims of redundancy selection
on age grounds, or of age discrimination in the recruitment process. The latter
is extremely hard to prove, but Oliver is sure the former will soon start coming
through.
Diana Worman, diversity adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development, said firms that had to sack staff might think it “kinder”
to let older rather than younger workers go. However, older workers cannot just
withdraw from employment as they did in past recessions. The value of pensions
and savings has fallen and people are living longer. “There’s less
of an economic cushion now,” she said.
She hopes British business won’t be shortsighted. “The recession
will end and the demographics that have until now made companies keen to retain
older workers will still be there,” she said.
Andrew Harrop, Age Concern’s head of policy, also believes age-discrimination
laws are being tested. “It’s a real test of fairness as to whether
people are going to be judged on their merits when it comes to redundancy selection
and job interviews,” he said. “I don’t think employers’
attitudes on age have changed nearly enough and if someone unemployed over 50
doesn’t get a job within six months there is a terrible risk they will
never work again. Confidence goes down and skills gaps open up.”
Robert, 54, an unemployed IT consultant from London, said the hardest part
was maintaining self-belief when nobody appeared to want you. He is so afraid
of being seen as “on the rubbish heap” that he will only speak anonymously.
“All the time I’m out of work, I’m just thinking I’m getting
older,” he said.
Harrop said the 60-70 age group were, if anything, in a worse position. Though
ageism is the one form of discrimination we might all suffer one day, he thinks
we are blind to that fact. “The public shows a lack of imagination about
the situations in which they may well find themselves in the not too distant
future.”
Not everyone thinks that the 30% jump in the number of overfifties out of work
after six months shows that they are being disproportionately targeted for redundancy.
Chris Ball, chief executive of the Age and Employment Network, said that in
earlier recessions older workers often received the “kill the bugger with
kindness” treatment and were offered financial incentives to go in preference
to younger workers. He thinks companies are “too wise now to do anything
but play by the book” and said the jump in overfifties unemployment was
mainly due to discrimination when people tried to find new jobs. “Agencies
in particular have a tendency to favour younger people,” he said.
Ball’s advice to anyone over 50? “Hang on to your job if you have
one,” he said. “The law isn’t a great deal of use when you apply
for jobs and aren’t selected for interview.” |
TIMESONLINE: Over-50s frozen out in the crunch 
