Recruiters are waking up to the business benefits of age discrimination legislation, according to exclusive research conducted jointly by Recruiter and the government’s Age Positive campaign.

The survey of 323 recruiters revealed that more than 90% believe the new age laws, due to come into force on 1 October, will provide some kind of benefit to the business.
More than one-fifth of recruiters believe it will be easier to place older, more experienced people, and will provide a wider pool of candidates. A minority of recruiters think it will fill temporary and part-time roles quicker

Ian Wolter, deputy chair of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) and chief executive of public sector recruitment agency Eden Brown, believes many recruiters have woken up to the fact that embracing the age laws is one way to combat skills shortages and an ageing workforce in the UK.

“We have one of the highest employment rates in the world and we don’t have enough workers to go round,” he said.
“By 2010, only 20% of the workforce will be white, able-bodied men under 40. Yes, there are organisational benefits but there really is no alternative to embracing diversity.”

Other findings revealed that recruiters still assume clients will discriminate against candidates on the basis of age.
Just under half of the recruiters thought their client would be concerned if they put forward an older candidate for a position that is stereotypically a ‘younger person’s role’. 

Younger candidates fared even worse: more than half of the recruiters said that clients would be concerned about a younger candidate in a stereotypically ‘older person’ role. The research also highlighted that there are a significant minority of recruiters (17%) who have yet to take any action with regards to training staff to deal with age discrimination legislation.