Age and employment
From 1 October 2006 the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 come into effect. This means that direct discrimination, indirect discrimination, harassment and victimisation will be unlawful on the grounds of age. The following areas are covered by the legislation.
Recruitment and selection
- It will be unlawful to specify a particular age unless an employer can show it is objectively justified, such as fixing a maximum age for recruitment to reflect training requirements or when there is a genuine occupational requirement such as a young actor for a particular role.
- When writing job adverts employers must avoid using language which may imply they are looking to recruit someone of a particular age, such as ‘lively’ ‘young’ or ‘mature’.
- With regard to recruitment only, the legislation does not apply for over 65s.
Service related benefits
- Employers may continue to use length of service criteria to reward staff, as long as the period of service is not more than five years. A simple example would be where an additional day’s annual leave is granted for each year of service. A length of service criteria exceeding five years can still be lawful providing it fulfils a business need, for example as a reward for loyalty.
Retirement
- There will be a national default retirement age of 65, with lower ages having to be objectively justified on a case by case basis.
- When an employer wishes to retire an employee of over 65 they will have to notify the employee between 6 and 12 months in advance of the intended retirement date and tell the employee of the right to request to work beyond the retirement date. If such a request is made, it must be made by the employee no less than three months before the intended retirement date. All employers must consider such requests, meet to discuss it, and provide a response within a reasonable time frame. Provided the correct procedure is complied with, there will be a presumption that a dismissal at or above the age of 65 is a planned retirement and there will be no right to claim unfair dismissal.
- An employee aged 65 or over who is dismissed for any reason other than a planned retirement will have the right to bring a claim for unfair dismissal.