Recruitment Advertising: Discrimination on the Basis of Age
| Pages | 54-65 |
| Published date | 01 May 1993 |
| Date | 01 May 1993 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425459310048545 |
| Author | Ann E. McGoldrick,James Arrowsmith |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Employee
Relations
15,5
54
Recruitment Advertising:
Discrimination on the
Basis of Age
Ann E. McGoldrick and James Arrowsmith
Department of Management, Manchester Metropolitan University,
Manchester, UK
The Organizational Context
Older Workers
in the Labour Market
As the last decade began to draw to a close, the 1990s seemed to offer the
prospective of a substantive improvement in the position of older workers
in the labour market. Under conditions of sustained economic growth wide
publicity was given
to
considerations of the potential implications for employers
of far-reaching demographic
change.
Initial concerns relating to a significant
and prolonged decline in the numbers of young people entering the labour
force were reinforced as many employers, particularly in the south east,
began to experience difficulties in meeting their labour requirements.
Employers were increasingly the recipients of exhortations to re-evaluate
and
revise
their traditional patterns of recruitment
on
grounds of organizational
necessity as well as equal opportunity[1-3]. This was equivalent to the
situation nearly 40 years before when the prospect of unfilled vacancies
arose
as a
result of
a
combination of economic growth and
a
marked reduction
in the availability of younger labour, bringing into question recruitment
practices and opening
up
debate on the capabilities of older men and women
at work[4]. In this case, Government initiatives and company interest,
however, soon faded as economic growth faltered and demographic changes
brought more younger people into the labour force.
Employers have currently remained on the whole slow in reconsidering
their attitudes and practices towards older workers. In
a
context of tightening
labour markets and at the height of concern about the expected impact of
the "demographic
timebomb",
organizational response continued
to
be slow
and reactive in nature, consisting mainly of a variety of short-term solutions
to
immediate recruitment problems and frequently focusing
on
an increasingly
energetic and competitive approach to younger labour.
A
major survey by
the National Economic Development Office (NEDO)[5], for example,
reported that only 8 per cent of employers were even considering making
an effort to attract more mature workers. More innovative programmes
were generally confined to the service sector and in particular to retailing,
Employee Relations,
Vol.
15
No.
5,
1993,
pp.
54-65,
©
MCB
University
Press,
0142-5455
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