Minimising age-bias in recruitment is an essential part of being an age-friendly employer. We know that 57% of people who have looked but not applied for a new job since turning 50 feel they would be at a disadvantage in applying for a job because of their age (YouGov/Centre for Ageing Better 2018). Our previous research has found that age is the least scrutinised and most widely accepted form of discrimination in the UK.
Too many older applicants are frozen out of the job market due to inadequate processes, age-bias and a lack of engagement from employers and recruiters. This ultimately disadvantages employers who fail to draw on the experience and abilities of a significant talent pool.
How we think about the job market needs to change so that age is no longer a barrier to people finding jobs, or employers finding people. The job market is going through dramatic changes with the impact of COVID-19, new technology and Brexit, making this research more timely than ever.
We have commissioned three research projects to build the evidence base:
- The current and future recruitment landscape for older workers – delivered by the Institute for Employment Studies
- Older workers’ own experience of recruitment - being delivered by Demos and the National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR)
- An experiment to explore what impact the choice of language used in recruitment materials have on older workers, and the prevalence of those terms - being delivered by the Behavioural Insights Team
We will publish the findings of these projects in early 2021. We plan to use the findings to feed into a second phase working directly with employers and recruiters to design, develop and test new approaches.
The first report of the series, from the Institute for Employment Studies, 'Shut out', is available to read now.
