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County Personnel Recruitment Consultants Limited
53-57 The Parade
Bourne End
Buckinghamshire
SL8 5SB
Tel: 01628 851303
Email
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53-57 The Parade
Bourne End
Buckinghamshire
SL8 5SB
Tel: 01628 851303
View map
Created by Jon Davey
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Raft of legal Challenges exploiting age Discrimination
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Employers and recruitment agencies should brace themselves for a new trend for job applicants exploiting age discrimination legislation to simultaneously file multiple claims against a raft of employers at once, says EMW Picton Howell, the commercial law firm.
EMW Picton Howell explained that these blanket claims are made after the complainant sends their CV, containing their age, in response to job advertisements for which they feel they are qualified. Claims are then launched if the complainant is not invited for an interview. Jon Taylor, head of employment at EMW Picton Howell, said: “These kinds of multiple claims can be worthwhile as employers sometimes decide it will just be cheaper to pay off the claimant to get rid of the claim.” Taylor added that age discrimination claims were a modern twist on the race discrimination claims, which used to be launched where an applicant would apply for a job separately using their own foreign name and an assumed Anglo-Saxon name. Using phrases such as “newly qualified” in recruitment adverts is not only resulting in an increasing number of claims from genuinely disgruntled applicants, said Taylor, it is “also sending out an open invitation to a new breed of serial litigators to try their luck”. He explained: “For example, if an employer or recruitment agency advertises for a “recent graduate” it’s relatively easy for the claimant to prove statistically that the majority of recent graduates fall with a fairly narrow age range. This will be enough evidence to shift the burden of proof onto the employer, who then has to justify the use of the term if he is to successfully defend the claim.” Taylor said whatever the outcome of claims; companies faced substantial legal fees and lost management time. He gives the following tips to protect against false discrimination claims: • Keep records of all advertisements and interviews that take place. • Retain any correspondence with the applicant. • Rationale for selecting or rejecting applicants. • Be vigilant about the language used in adverts. • Never advertise in just one publication; advertise across a spectrum of media that will receive exposure to a wide audience of all ages. |
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