Age discrimination - who is right?

By Neil Patrick

Here’s an interesting  film that sets out both sides of the debate about age discrimination in the workplace.

On the one hand, there’s the question about whether a mature person brings more value. On the other hand why shouldn’t an employer have the right to do whatever they see fit to run their business as efficiently as they can? I’ve written plenty elsewhere on this blog about this question.

My view is that the uncomfortable fact is that the law is a bad place to put our trust in fair treatment. We all know that in practice, law isn’t about justice. It’s about money and who can afford the best legal team. Usually in employment litigation, that’s the employer not the employee.

So it cannot be a good strategy to put our trust in legal redress if we  have suffered or risk suffering age discrimination. The unfortunate fact remains that once we pass 40 we are increasingly vulnerable with every year that passes.

The only solution is that we must have a back up plan in place to secure our income, temporarily or permanently  if we face the loss of our job.