HR Management Current Events Report
They Hired Someone Younger
Source (publication name or URL):
http://www.aarp.org/money/work/articles/they_hired_someone_younger.html
Bob Skladany
Publication Date: July 10, 2009.
Subject / Main Ideas / Concepts of article: A question and answer format where a woman (a widow) is applying for a job, had an excellent interview, and two weeks later was told she did not get the job. She feels it is because of age discrimination, because the job went to an applicant half her age. She wants to know if she can sue, or at least pressure the employer to change their decision.
Identify points that seemed new or insightful to you:
There were several points that were new or insightful in the article. The author is a career counselor for retirement jobs, and an expert at finding work at retirement age, and he assesses that age discrimination is extremely difficult to prove. He writes, "Proving that an employer...
Successful claims represent less than 15% of age-discrimination complaints filed with state and federal agencies, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission" (Skladany). This was surprising, because the Age Discrimination Act was supposed to help end this practice, and it seems it has not. It seems that employers can get around it by using other hiring excuses, when in reality; it probably was age that kept them from hiring an older person. I was also surprised to read that these types of cases rarely go to trial, and even if a person wins, the records are sealed, so others won't know about the employer's record on age discrimination.
What questions, concerns, difficulties do these reading raise?
The questions and concerns this reading raises are mostly concerns for HR departments to make fair hiring decisions, based on experience and knowledge rather than age. The article also raises questions about older workers, and why…
