Many people believe that age discrimination in hiring is the most common form of discrimination faced by older workers today.  This is because many employers deal with high health and related costs (benefits) by having policies in place that discourage hiring older workers. 

But in reality, these same older workers actually left the workforce in many cases because of age discrimination.  Many seasoned workers who have much to still offer their employers are being laid off as a result of economic downturn, resulting in the need of employers to drop expenses. They look for the biggest bang for their buck and see that by reducing payroll costs for their more seasoned employees and replacing it with younger employees, they generally save on benefit and pension costs in addition to payroll costs. 

Therefore, it is the combination of retaining older employees along with the hiring of older employees that actually make up age discrimination. 

But doesn´t the Age Discrimination Employment Act (ADEA) preclude employers from doing this? The intent of ADEA is to prevent age discrimination practices such as this. In reality, it would be extremely difficult to prove that employer practices with respect to a layoff of an individual or group of employees, actually constitutes age discrimination. Employers are not going to volunteer the intent of their hiring and retention policies, never mind admit to any wrongdoing. 

With the impending Boomer retirement already in process (will take 20 years to complete), we may see shortages of seasoned workers in the workforce. Employers´ practices today may be causing themselves problems in the future.

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