Age Discrimination in the Workforce

In today’s culture, people believe that the younger generation is more flexible, vibrant, enthusiastic, and willing to work longer hours. American society believes that the younger generation should be taking over the workforce and the older generation should be retiring. Our society does not realize that they are discriminating against the elderly by not letting them work because of their age. There is a law that was passed in 1967 called the Age Discrimination Employment Act. The Age Discrimination Employment Act protects any person forty years of age and above and it does not matter if they are an employer or a job applicant (Podgers, 2007). If a person believes they are being rejected for a job or getting fired because of their age, they can file a case against the person or company.

There was a recent case about a very large law firm that was being sued for violating the Age Discrimination Employment Act. Sidley Austin was the law firm that was sued when they fired thirty two of their partners because of their age. Since this law firm violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act they had to pay $27.5 million to the partners. The ten lawyers that were sued because they violated the act were stripped from their partner status (Donovan, 2007). There was another case which violated the Age Discrimination Employment Act and it dealt with a high paid nurse that worked for a hospital. A sixty- three years old female senior nurse was making twenty five dollars per hour, she was the highest paid nurse. Since this nurse has been working there the longest, the hospital told her that she will be the one of the first nurses to get rehired. When the day came for the hospital to rehire their nurses, the senior nurse was fired instead of getting rehired. The nurse complained and she received about $1.61 million in addition to $1.3 million in punitive damages (Redman, 2003). The hospital never told the nurse why she was being fired.

Age discrimination is not just a problem in the United States, but it is also a problem internationally. For example, China is also experiencing problems with age discrimination. According to the China Post, Japan Airlines are forcing their flight attendants to retire by the time they are thirty five years old. Other airlines in Japan are forcing their flight attendants to retire by the time they are forty five years old. The reason they have to retire early is not because they can’t serve drinks and meals or tell passengers to buckle their seat belt, but because of the way they look. Airlines want fight attendants who are young and beautiful. Another case regarding age discrimination involved a construction firm. This firm was only considering applicants who were under the age of forty. This construction firm posted up job ads that mentioned specific age, birth place, and gender. When the firm was caught then they were fined $9,000.

Age discrimination is a big problem right now in our work force. As the baby boomers are nearing their retirement age, the new generation is stepping into the workforce. There have been some age discrimination remarks made inside the workforce as the older and newer generation start working together. Some of the remarks that have been said are like “when are you getting over the hill” or like “old man” (Redman, 2003). Even though there has been discrimination going on within the company, there has also been discrimination during the application process. Age discrimination happens when companies do recruitment, job advertisement, interviews, employment benefits, and training.

Companies discriminate against age when they target and recruit a certain age group. Many companies say they want young and vibrant candidates. This is considered a form of age discrimination because they are only targeting the younger group and not the elderly. Companies can also reverse age discrimination by targting the elderly population when the require at least fifteen years of experience in the field. According to Avoid Age- Related Tribunal Claims, recruitment is a difficult criteria to prove that age discrimination has occurred (2008). It is the same thing in China. When the Chinese employer wants to recruit than they will specifically target the younger generation or the older generation. Since China has a lot of employers that are from the United States, those employers will only target the American’s.

The way companies in China recruit is that they have posters and commercials on the television that tell them about the company. In China they follow the anti discriminate act so they won’t get sued. The companies in China and the companies in the United States are similar when they go to recruit for job openings. They both go to universities to seek out college graduates. They also use these famous job sites and they also advertise in the newspaper. When the companies are recruiting they should not focus on the applicants age but what their skills are like. It is hard for companies both in the United States and in Chin not to look for applicants that they are looking for. They might want a young and active employee but by having this kind of mind set they are violating the Age Discrimination Employment Act. According to the China Post, the company Mitsubishi was recruiting employees in the United States and during their recruitment they met a guy who had excellent GMAT scores and new his technology but the problem was that he was around forty years old. The company did not hire him and instead hired a person who was younger and did not have that much experience in the work field. The elderly man sued Mitsubishi for discrimination.

Another way that companies discriminate is when they do job advertisement. When a company advertises for their company then many companies have a habit of saying that we are looking for “vibrant” people. When a company says that then they mean that they want young applicants. When companies advertise their company and the job that they are looking for, they tend to use a young person in their late twenties and earl thirties. It gives the elderly crowd a hint that this company only wants young people and not the elderly. When companies do that then they are violating the age discrimination act.

On the other hand, China has a different way of advertising their jobs. China definitely uses the television as a mean to advertise their job and they use the generic young person to do the part in the advertisement. In China they also use the newspaper and billboards as a mean of advertising for their company. There has been a few companies that when they advertised their job qualification in the newspaper and billboard they also put how old the person should be and many other detail qualification. That type of practice can lead to a law

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