I'm just thinking. Age discriminations laws in the UK are fairly recent. I think it was only 4 years ago that these laws were passed. I am just wondering just how prevalent age discrimination is in British workplaces?

The Chartered Management Institute acutally made a study they released in October 2005, and they found that

59% of respondents felt that they have been victims of age discrimination
Only 7% of companies target older workers when recruiting
Age was most likely to be used as a redundancy criteria

Whoa, I didn't think that this was a problem! But apparently it is! And a prevalent one at that.

Sadly, that is not the end of it. I've found some statistics from the Employment Tribunal and guess what, there were already close to a thousand age discrimination claims in 2006, when the law was first passed. That TRIPLED in the years 2007-2008 to 2,949 cases and increased in the 2008/2009 period with 3,800 cases!

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Well, I guess that has something to do with education. People who suffer from age discrimination bears it because they really don't have anything to protect them. With the new laws, and them finding out about it, they are fighting for their rights!

I think that it is now unlawful to use age as a redundancy criteria now. It should be noted that if age is one of the criteria in the process, then it makes it automatically unlawful.

Agreed. This is why people should really know their rights so they could fight for it.

Which is why this forum and others like it exists, right???

My thoughts exactly. On the reverse side, one of our redundancy criteria a few months back was LIFO, last in first out, but it was vetoed by the union because it was bordering on age discrimination.

A new survey conducted by the Department of Communities and Local Government has found that 4% of employees above 50, say that they have been refused a job because of their age.