Age and time taken to find employment following redundancy
Exclusive new research from agediscrimination.info reveals the startling impact of age discrimination legislation on recruitment and selection.
We obtained data from the Office for National Statistics relating to the length of time it takes people of various ages to find a new job following redundancy.
The data reveals the position in 2006, just before the UK’s anti-age discrimination legislation (the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006) came into effect.
Click here for the 2006 chart.
The peaks and troughs show that there is considerable difference between the length of time it take various age groups to find employment. Those at the lower age bands tend to find new employment quicker than older employees, but with a peak for those aged 40-44 age band. In general, there is no consistency of treatment amongst the age groups and, arguably, this is symptomatic of age discrimination in recruitment and selection.
Contrast this with the position in 2009: by this point, age discrimination had been unlawful for 3 years in the UK. Employers had had time to enact policies, train staff and adapt their culture. The effect it had on the data is dramatic to say the least.
Click here for the 2009 chart.
We can see that there is much more uniformity of treatment, so much so that you can almost draw a horizontal line across the ages 20-59. There is still some variation amongst the age groups, but this is much less pronounced. Those aged 20-59 all took a similar sort of time to find new employment.
There are still some outliers (i.e. the age groups 16-19 and 60-64), but at these levels, an employer would find it much easier to justify any age discrimination (for cases relating to justification of age discrimination, go to our age discrimination cases section).
The data appears to show that age is no longer the bar to finding employment that it used to be. The increased uniformity of the length of time it takes people to find new employment may show that employers have embraced the age discrimination legislation, rather than pay lip service to it.
For more information, contact Tom Heys
March 2011
Follow us on Twitter @agediscriminfo