To engage the Wealth
Of Wisdom to be
found amongst older people
END
AGE DISCRIMINATION NOW
The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006
which come into effect in October will:
- outlaw discrimination on grounds of age in respect of the recruitment, promotion and training of staff;
- extend employment rights in respect of unfair dismissal, redundancy and sick pay beyond the age of 65 years, and;
- place a duty on employers to give serious consideration to requests to go on working..
Chris Perry, Director of Age Concern Hampshire, said: “This is good news for the 2.8m people, a third of the population, between the ages of 50 and 65 years who are out of work. However that employers will still be able to have a retirement age of 65 years, retire people with six months notice and refuse applications from people over the age of 64 years and 6 months is discriminatory in the extreme.
“No other group of people can be totally excluded or discriminated against in this way
“Imagine the outcry if an employer had a policy of not accepting applications from, women, from black people, from people with disabilities, from Muslims or Christians – they just would not get away with it. And yet it will be perfectly legal to reject applications from people over 64 years and 6 months.
“In a recent survey 59% of respondents envisaged working on beyond the age of 65 years and yet 64% felt it was virtually impossible to get a job over the age of 55 years. Research shows that 70% of people who lose their jobs over the age of 50 never find another job. Hopefully this legislation will change that.
“Awareness of ‘age discrimination’ is about where that of ‘race discrimination’ was in the 1950’s. Until we rid our society of the social exclusion and discrimination associated with, and outlaw, the phrase ‘people of working age’ we will not have begun to tackle the problem.
INFORMATION AND ADVICE 0800 328 71 54
Putting the
WOW
into retirement
