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Writer's pictureMiranda Ubong

Employment Age Discrimination: The Signs

Updated: Aug 23, 2019

What qualifies as employment age discrimination?

A sheer practice by companies, business owners, employers who refuse to treat fairly; employees or potential employees, around or above the age of 40.

Oh well in modern times, this practice seem to have degraded to even the 30's.




There is now a lot of stereotype and assumption about these age groups. How that their productivity or creativity is already decreasing if not decreased. Most recognized companies reportedly are a part of this practice. Business Insider reported in 2017 the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn having average employee age at about 28, Google, Apple, E bay, Amazon an average employee age of about 31 – a highly disparaging age workplace.


The notion, sprouting already; a high incidence of discriminatory job advertisements, poor employee experiences and consequently loss of self-worth among this group.


Employers have a civil duty (“as employers”) to take responsible measures to avoid employment age discrimination. Sadly the current Labor Act of Nigeria doesn’t specifically cover age discrimination at the workplace in this regard.



On this post we look briefly at the signs of employment age discrimination:


No learning opportunities among them: Probably because employers compare their ROI from training and developing the younger group to the older group of employees, or whatever the reason. An organization that doesn’t have an inclusive annual development plan for its older employees is simply an age-discriminatory organization.



No challenging assignments among them: By reason of the stereotypes on older employees not being as creative or productive as their younger colleagues, they usually find themselves doing routine, repetitive, overly standardized tasks at their workplaces. Hey, your Company is age-discriminatory if they do this.



Demeaning Age Comments: Or call it disparaging. These older employees often get side talks, intentional comments and derogatory communications from their bosses and even colleagues at their workplace. Yeah, the younger group, alongside their employers, engages in age discrimination also.



Little or no incentives: Maybe as a means to flush them out the system, employers do not fairly incentivize these older employees. They don’t get the perks; promotions, recognition, social assignments like their younger colleagues do. This is an intentional act by an age-discriminatory organization.



No Exposure: The thinking that social aptness declines with age; the age advanced employees rarely get any exposures that comes with the job especially when it is a social assignment. There are clasped within the same environment for too long it actually begins to really degrade their social skills.



No career growth: You will often find in most organizations really age-advanced employees pretty much on the same position over a very long period, or even on rather insignificant positions. These people find that they are not growing career-wise and most often don’t quit for fear of being unemployable given their age.



Disparaging Employee Turnover: This could be voluntary or involuntary. The older employees get to the point of resigning rather than experience the unfair practices any further. Or, they are being forced out of the system through early retirement, or unfair termination. Unfair! Totally unfair!



Highly Discriminating Job Adverts: Unarguably the latest trend in recent times. Top companies publicly put out job adverts with age limits of not more than 26 on the average. Candidates get screened out of interview stages for being up to 30 years of age. This particular trend is demeaning, too discriminatory to people rights



We understand that certain role specifications require a certain age limit or that certain parameters like age, is used to lean out a pile of job applicants. As organizations we ought to be a little more emotionally intelligent and in tune with the current economy. Who is more valuable; a candidate at 24 who stops learning or a candidate at 35 who is still given to learning and development? Potential is a choice, age isn’t. Everyone deserves an equal opportunity.

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