Ten years of tackling age discrimination in the workplace
Ten years ago, the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 (later replaced by the Equality Act 2010 on 1 October 2010) were introduced, marking the beginning of greater legislative efforts to tackle the unfair treatment of UK employees of all ages.
Since then, there have been many landmark cases demonstrating that discrimination related to age remains with us in the 21st century workplace. A number of cases have also tested the robustness of the legislation, often leading to an outcome that sets a precedent for workplace policy development. The simple use of language within some job adverts was one of the first areas to fall foul of the legislation. For example, phrases such as “youthful enthusiasm” and “candidates in the first five years of their career” were held to be age discriminatory…