Workplace anti-discrimination laws protecting older employees in the workplace failed to protect
these workers during and after the recession. That information comes from a new study that was released by
the National Bureau of Economic Research.
According to
the study, workplace anti-discrimination laws protecting older employees did
nothing to protect these employees from unfair treatment during the recession. In order to study the impact of federal
anti- discrimination laws protecting older employees, the researchers focused
on unemployment and job offers involving candidates aged 55 and above. They looked at the data in various
states before, during as well as after the recession.
They found
that while there are federal anti-workplace discrimination laws protecting
senior employees, many states have laws in place that do a much better job of
protecting older employees from being fired. They therefore focused on those states that, at least in
theory, did afford better worker protections to older employees. They found that although the laws were very
effective in helping protect senior employees from age-based employment discrimination during
normal times, they did not seem to work as well during a recession.
At a time of
recession, during large-scale layoffs, and massive job insecurity, these laws did
not protect older employees from discrimination. In fact, in some states, older employees seemed to be much
worse off compared to before the recession, in spite of their state having laws
protecting them from unfair firing and other wrongful practices.
Moreover,
such unfair treatment often led to devastating consequences for the seniors. When senior employees were fired
because of large-scale layoffs, they were less likely to find another job after
the termination.
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