Legal Barriers to Age Discrimination in Hiring Complaints

Studies have shown that senior workers endure longer spells of unemployment than their younger counterparts. Age discrimination has been identified as one of the main obstacles to reemployment. This article critically examines how Canadian anti-age discrimination law has responded to the contemporary challenges experienced by senior job seekers. It articulates several difficulties in our existing age discrimination legal framework by analyzing and contrasting social science literature on the present labour market experience of senior job applicants with human rights tribunal and court decisions in hiring complaints. It concludes by sketching a preliminary set of workable proposals for change that derives from the recognition that age discrimination in hiring takes a systemic form and should be addressed as such.