The dangers of ageism at work

We live in an ageist society, particularly when it comes to the workplace. But are attitudes to age starting to change? Liz Fisher reports

What is the worst thing that could happen in your career? For many people, their biggest fear is redundancy over the age of 50. Experience shows'and statistics prove'that the average worker's chances of finding a new job within 15 years of retirement age are extremely small. And yet the UK population is living longer. The pensions crisis has already shown that the UK cannot afford to support a growing population that retires at the age of 60 or 65 and the Government is actively encouraging us to work longer. Clearly, something has to change.

But there is little doubt that the UK is an ageist society, particularly when it comes to the workplace. A poll conducted by Age Concern at the end of 2001 suggested that 1.8m people between the ages of 55 and 64 have suffered from age discrimination at work. Age Concern's findings were backed up by another survey a year later, carried out for campaigners Fiftyon, which found that 44% of respondents had suffered from age discrimination and 66% had decided to leave their job as a result. Fiftyon also found that 20% of respondents to their survey had been rejected from job applications more than 80 times on the basis that they were too old or 'experienced'.

And yet, according to the United Nations' figures, the over-60s population is growing faster in Europe than anywhere else in the world. There are around 19m people over the age of 50 in the UK, or 40% of the total population. Just under six million of those (translating as 70% of the men and 65% of women) under the state retirement age are in employment. According to Help the Aged, around 750,000 of the remaining over 50s are willing to work but unable to find a suitable position.

The Government also predicts that the number of people over the age of 50 will increase by three million by the year 2020. The implications for the state pension system, of course, are immense and the Government has proposed encouraging people to work longer by offering an additional lump sum to anyone who defers their state pension to the age of 70. Work and pensions secretary, Andrew Smith, said, in launching the Green Paper, that the UK Government was 'determined to help more people carry on working until they are 65, and even beyond. At the moment a wealth of talent and experience in the workplace is lost as people stop working too early'.

The message is clear'the UK cannot afford to discriminate on the basis of age. Even so, age discrimination seems to be rife. According to a survey carried out by the recruitment website Fish4jobs.com, almost three-quarters of the UK's companies have a mandatory retirement age and only one in 25 companies had a staff member over the age of 65. The survey also suggested that three in four employers consider age during the recruitment process and more than half said they would be suspicious if an applicant did not include his or her age on a CV.

In the legislation-hungry US, the story is rather different. US companies are legally forbidden to discriminate against workers on the basis of their age. The law will be tested in the most high-profile way in the coming months when 56-year-old Sharon Haugh, the American-born chairman of Schroder Investment Management North America, brings an age discrimination suit against the UK based bank. Haugh claims that, just 10 days after she won an award for outstanding achievement, she was fired after refusing to accept early retirement because Schroders' chief executive wanted someone younger in the role. Schroders has denied that Haugh was removed on the grounds of her age and says it is committed to equal opportunities.

The Schroders suit is being brought under US law. As yet, there is no equivalent anti-age legislation in place in the UK and it is perfectly legal to make a worker redundant on the basis of his or her age, although there are voluntary guidelines available. The problem, to be fair, is worse in some sectors than in others but often the root cause is the same'new technology. 'I believe it is a perception problem,' says Victoria Jonson, ACCA's small business policy adviser. 'A lot of people believe that older workers are not IT literate.' The IT sector itself is predominantly young, arguably because the industry itself is young. But the demographics of IT workers is not growing old with the industry. Older faces simply do not fit with the industry's young image and older workers, as a result, suffer.

That is not to say that age discrimination is confined to hi-tech industries. The BBC newsreader Peter Sissons saw himself as a victim of ageism when he was pushed out of a key presenting role in favour of younger staff. Sissons said that one of the BBC's biggest 'blind spots' was its 'tendency toward ageism'. Former BBC chief news correspondent, Kate Adie, agreed, saying there was no longer room at the organisation for 'an ageing old trout' such as her.

Organisations like Age Concern argue that companies damage their own interests by ignoring older workers. Victoria Jonson agrees. 'We have found that companies who lay off tiers of older workers find later that they have to hire consultants in order to fill the skills gap,' she says. 'The fact is that older workers are a huge economic resource. The US has already recognised that and employment agencies specialising in 'grey workers' have found a good market for their services.'

UK companies may soon be forced into changing their attitude. The Government's Green Paper on pensions promised to introduce age discrimination legislation at some point in the future but the fact is that the Government has little choice in the matter. In 2000, the European Union Council of Ministers adopted the European Directive on Equal Treatment, which requires all 15 EU member states to introduce legislation that prohibits direct and indirect discrimination at work on the grounds of age, sexual orientation, religion or disability. The UK Government has agreed to introduce age legislation by 2006 (the deadline set by the EU) and is currently consulting on how the legislation could work in practice. As yet, there are few clues. Perhaps the biggest issue to be resolved is the mandatory retirement age, simply because anyone working over retirement age technically has no employment rights. The Government's official line is that the 2006 deadline to complete the legislation will give it 'the necessary time to resolve the complexities surrounding [retirement age] and to decide the right approach to retirement ages in the light of the outcome of extensive consultation'. In other words, whether the mandatory retirement age will be raised or abolished is anyone's guess but experts are predicting that the Government will shy away from banning mandatory retirement.

MPs, of course, have no mandatory retirement age. Working later in life may not be everyone's wish but the freedom to choose would be widely welcomed.

Liz Fisher is a freelance journalist specialising in business and accounting issues.