In the fourth part of this five-part, bite-sized series, Lucy Lewis, associate in the employment and incentives department of Lewis Silkin spells out just what employers can and cannot say in recruitment advertisements.
Age Discrimination legislation comes into force on 1 October 2006. Following the introduction of the legislation it will be unlawful to discriminate against employees on the grounds of their age (unless this can be justified). This will impact on all aspects of the employment relationship from recruitment to retirement and damages for successful claims will be uncapped.
The experience of countries that already have age discrimination shows that it will be particularly important to avoid suggestions of discrimination from the wording used in job advertisements. We will be examining the sort of wording used by employers in job advertisements and explaining how that may be considered to be discriminatory over the next few weeks.
The example:
Our second example is the use of the term“…travel at short notice…”
The lesson:
Where is the age discrimination in that? Well, prospective employees in their 30s are far more likely to have difficulty being away from home because of young children and childcare responsibilities than those in their 20s or 50s. This requirement could be indirectly discriminatory on the grounds of both age and sex.
Next time:
In the next part of this series we will look at the use of the following phrase: “…10 year’s experience required…”
Series articles:
Related items
- Any Answers: The use of ‘junior/senior’ in job titles
- Jargon Buster: Age discrimination
- Age discrimination: Will legislation help?
Lucy Lewis can be contacted at: lucy.lewis@lewissilkin.com
2 Responses
not as much age discrimination as gender?
If the job requires travel at short notice, it’s more a fact that personal commitments (ie parenthood) would hinder the recruitment process. I don’t see age discrimination here (a 30 year old single woman would be more prone to be available at short notice than a 50 year old dad of a toddler) however there could definitely be gender discrimination against mothers of young children or “status discrimination” (such a thing is bound to come up one of these days) against parents in general.
I think this item shows where we must draw the line between discrimination and job requirements. If an applicant foresees not being able to do the job (in that case traveling at short notice), then they are not appropriate candidates. Whatever the reason: (high maintenance pet, family duties, involvement in extra-curricular activities, the list is endless.
it is justified
presumably employers would put this into an advert if it was a part of the job and if it was a necessary part of the job this surely makes it ‘justified age discrimination.’