Labor & Employment » Older Workers Face Discrimination

Older Workers Face Discrimination

March 27, 2017

Subject: Unemployment for middle age workers, a hand holding up cardboard sign with "OVER 40 NEED WORK" written.

Baby boomers looking to work past the conventional retirement age face a real threat to job prospects: ageism. A recent study sent 40,000 resumes for thousands of real jobs, identical except for age. “The call-back rate – the rate by which employers contact us and say we’d like to interview you – drops from young applicants to middle-aged applicants and drops further from middle-aged applicants to older applicants,” David Neumark, a professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine and one of three economists to author the study, told NPR. Neumark said the study also found that call-back results were worse for older women than older men. The Supreme Court is considering taking up an ageism lawsuit brought against tobacco company R. J. Reynolds. The company told recruiters that ideal candidates for regional sales jobs would be just two to three years out of college, and that those with more than eight years of experience should be avoided. One job recruiter turned whistleblower and sent the hiring documents to an employment lawyer in San Francisco. AARP has joined that suit as a friend of the court, as well as some labor economists, including Neumark.

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