Is recruiting younger employees legal? (1 Viewer)

WhoDatPhan78

Definitely not part of the deep state.
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
11,341
Reaction score
22,345
Offline
Just wonder what attorneys think about companies openly targeting younger people with marketing for employees.

My understanding is that age is a protected group like race or religion.

A business can’t target white people or Muslims for employment. Why do I see ads by companies that specifically say they are recruiting millennials for jobs with their company?

Is this something that has been litigated before?
 
Do you need legal representation?

No.

My wife complains about it constantly and just wondered if there was anything there.

She’s already got an NLRB complaint working on a different issue and she was dealing with the employer on a settlement and they want her to agree to not file any other complaints, and we are just wondering how many potential complaints she may have.
 
No.

My wife complains about it constantly and just wondered if there was anything there.

She’s already got an NLRB complaint working on a different issue and she was dealing with the employer on a settlement and they want her to agree to not file any other complaints, and we are just wondering how many potential complaints she may have.
Wait your wife is looking into filing another complaint? Or is she a lawyer?
 
Wait your wife is looking into filing another complaint? Or is she a lawyer?

She’s not looking to file another complaint.

I was just describing how the question came up. our conversations about discrimination got us wondering about how age discrimination might apply to targeting young people to employ.
 
Just wonder what attorneys think about companies openly targeting younger people with marketing for employees.

My understanding is that age is a protected group like race or religion.

A business can’t target white people or Muslims for employment. Why do I see ads by companies that specifically say they are recruiting millennials for jobs with their company?

Is this something that has been litigated before?

Got an example?
Even the protections have certain limitations.
 
It’s a good question but they kind of have an out they don’t have with minorities. Obviously they have other reasons for wanting too, like the years of elevation on the older employees pays but if the majority of people in a firm are older then they can say it’s to make things more fair or that they haven’t given younger generations enough of a chance. It doesn’t make the systematic outing of older employees very pretty but it’s not like actively seeking out a race or gender, unless that race or gender is in fact the minority.

i know a few people who have either recently experienced this or experienced circumstances that make them feel they are in real danger of becoming expendable
 
Not a lawyer but I do some work in this space and have been on calls with HR leadership and corporate counsel talking about this very issue.

It's definitely something that can get the company in trouble if they are targeting specific ages or age groups when hiring. However proving that they are intentionally doing this is probably difficult. You'd have to have some sort of tangible evidence such as internal emails (which you'd have to subpoena I guess), or the recruiter/hiring manager telling a candidate "you're too old for this job". And at that point the company would probably pin it on the individual. It's very hard to prove that a company is wholesale discriminating in their hiring practices.

There are ways to tiptoe around it as well. You can (at least it's the belief of many of my clients) advise your recruiting team to look for "early-career" candidates, which will obviously skew towards younger folks. And most recruiters know what you're saying by not saying with that and will follow your lead.

I run into this quite a bit because a service I provide to clients is building predictive attrition models. Age is always a really strong predictor of turnover, but I always have to have the conversation with them of why I don't want to use it as a factor in our model. Because my model could tell you "this top performing salesperson is in danger of leaving" because they're young (amongst other factors), and if you give them something based on that info (IE a raise or retention bonus), it could be construed as giving them preferential treatment because of age. So I always advise against it. Most of my clients listen.

Again, not a lawyer, this isn't legal or professional advice and shouldn't be construed as anything along those lines. In fact, I'm mostly full of crap, as per usual.
 
Not a lawyer. But it depends. It's easier to add an entry level position to your staff, or find someone with a few years experience, and that will skew younger. There is nothing illegal about that.
 
For pimps it is most likely illegal
 
Just wonder what attorneys think about companies openly targeting younger people with marketing for employees.

My understanding is that age is a protected group like race or religion.


It's my understanding that age is a protected group....BUT....it only protects people over a certain age. In other words, the protection prevents you from refusing to hire someone simply because they are too old. I don't think it has anything to do with people under that age.
 
It's my understanding that age is a protected group....BUT....it only protects people over a certain age. In other words, the protection prevents you from refusing to hire someone simply because they are too old. I don't think it has anything to do with people under that age.

Over 40.

And yeah, you can discriminate against young people under 40 without repercussion but I believe OP's ask was the other way around which would presumably put his wife in the protected class for age.
 
I don't know much about the hiring part, but one place I have worked it was very difficult for managers to fire any employee who is up there in age. HR just finds an excuse to not fire them almost no matter what they have or have not done.
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account on our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Users who are viewing this thread

    Back
    Top Bottom