Too Old? Not in the Workplace

One of the forms of discrimination that may be more prevalent than people think and which many people know very little about is age discrimination.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has facts about age discrimination here: click here

And the United States Department of Labor has information here: click here

But this issue is not as cut and dry as many people would think. Recently my dad was unemployed for a while and while trying to get a new job, he did everything he could to hide his age because of his perceived bias on the part of the people who he was interviewing with.

And he's not the only one...the Supreme Court will hear five Age Discrimination cases according to the Washington Post: click here

The Christian Science Monitor also takes up the issue putting out the issue of: when can people sue for age discrimination: click here

Although this would seem to be a cut and dry area, many companies have policies against older employees and many fire older, tenured employees to bring in younger ones.

And then there's an article from the Boston Globe saying that colleges, companies, and state officials in Massachusetts are giving incentives for young people to stay in state: click here

Although this seems like a good, practical idea with many Baby Boomers retiring and a need for these young workers, how can giving these incentives to young workers and not to the older ones NOT be age discrimination? Would someone have a case against these organizations that provide this incentive?

We'll find out quite soon after the Supreme Court ruling...