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posted 01 December 2008
Employers and recruitment agencies should brace themselves for a
new trend for job applicants exploiting age discrimination legislation to
simultaneously file multiple claims against a raft of employers at once,
says EMW Picton Howell, the commercial law firm.
EMW Picton Howell explained that these blanket claims are made after
the complainant sends their CV, containing their age, in response to job
advertisements for which they feel they are qualified. Claims are then
launched if the complainant is not invited for an interview.
Jon Taylor, head of employment at EMW Picton Howell, said: “These kinds
of multiple claims can be worthwhile as employers sometimes decide it
will just be cheaper to pay off the claimant to get rid of the claim.”
Taylor added that age discrimination claims were a modern twist on the
race discrimination claims, which used to be launched where an applicant
would apply for a job separately using their own foreign name and an
assumed Anglo-Saxon name.
Using phrases such as “newly qualified” in recruitment adverts, is not
only resulting in an increasing number of claims from genuinely
disgruntled applicants, said Taylor, it is “also sending out an open
invitation to a new breed of serial litigators to try their luck”.
He explained: “For example, if an employer or recruitment agency
advertises for a “recent graduate” it’s relatively easy for the claimant to
prove statistically that the majority of recent graduates fall with a fairly
narrow age range. This will be enough evidence to shift the burden of
proof onto the employer, who then has to justify the use of the term if
he is to successfully defend the claim.”
Taylor said whatever the outcome of claims, companies faced substantial
legal fees and lost management time.
He gives the following tips to protect against false discrimination claims:
· Keep records of all advertisements and interviews that take place.
· Retain any correspondence with the applicant.
· Rationale for selecting or rejecting applicants.
· Be vigilant about the language used in adverts.
· Never advertise in just one publication; advertise across a spectrum of
media that will receive exposure to a wide audience of all ages.
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