Age discrimination is probably the least understood and least recognised of the varied social prejudices that affect the life of the populations of member-states of the European Community.
(Eric Midwinter, 2005)

The hiring policy of enterprises is predominantly youth oriented. Mature jobseekers are being excluded from the recruitment process because they are stereotyped as being ‘too old’ to do certain jobs. If this waste of the skills, experiences and competencies of elderly professionals is counter-productive today, it will become an even bigger problem in the future as Europe’s demographic profile is changing and the proportion of younger applicants is declining.

Two major issues support the need for a re-orientation of the hiring policies currently in place:

• Due to the demographic shift the skilled labour supply is constantly declining. In the future the number of young skilled employees will continue to dwindle, the participation of older workers will become (and already is) essential.
• EU Equal Treatment Directive 2000 makes it unlawful that older applicants are discriminated against their age.

The ICT sector is an area where this problem is particularly acute. Organisations should begin now to examine and redesign their own recruitment and selection policies and practices to avoid age bias.

mature@eu- Supporting Employers Recruiting and Selecting Mature Aged Persons aims to enable employers or personnel recruiters to introduce age-diverse recruitment policies and practices.