Prevent discrimination and value diversity

It is generally unlawful for an employer to discriminate on the grounds of age - ie to treat individuals of any age less favourably than others on the grounds of age.

Age discrimination exceptions

There are limited circumstances when age discrimination can be lawful - for example:

• if there is a genuine occupational requirement - ie if you are producing a play that has parts for older or younger characters
• if there are legal reasons - ie where people must be at least 18 years old to serve alcohol
• if there is an objective justification - ie the employer must show real evidence that they are pursuing a legitimate aim and that the age restriction is a proportionate means of achieving that aim

Exceptions to age discrimination are rare and any should be considered carefully. Unjustified age discrimination can be challenged and there is no statutory limit on how much an industrial tribunal can award.

Direct age discrimination

Direct age discrimination would occur if, for example, an employer refused to employ people under the age of 30, believing them to be unreliable (as such a reason, being nothing more than a negative stereotype, is unlikely to be justifiable). It would also be direct age discrimination to have, without lawful justification, a compulsory retirement age for your employees (no matter whether it is set at 55, 60, 65 or 70 years old or at any other age).

Indirect age discrimination

Indirect age discrimination would occur if, for example, an employer for recruitment purposes only advertised jobs in magazines aimed at young people - this may discriminate against older people as they are less likely to subscribe to the magazine; or introduced a benefit only for employees with more than ten years' service - fewer younger employees are likely to have enough service to qualify. However, it might be possible to justify this type of discrimination if it was reasonably necessary to do it in order to achieve some legitimate business aim, such as rewarding staff experience or encouraging staff retention.

Note that it may be possible to state that a job holder must be of a certain age where being of that age is a genuine occupational requirement - see discrimination during the recruitment process.

For more information on these and other forms of discrimination, see equality law and types of discrimination.

Avoiding age discrimination

You should check that your recruitment process is non-discriminatory, eg aim to place advertisements in publications read by a range of age groups, and avoid using terms which imply a particular age group, such as 'mature', 'enthusiastic', 'highly experienced' or 'recent graduate'.

See discrimination during the recruitment process.

You must also make sure that your redundancy procedures are based on business needs rather than age, eg it could be discriminatory to select employees for redundancy solely on the basis of 'last in, first out'.

Download an Equality Commission guide for employers on age discrimination in Northern Ireland (PDF, 2.3MB).