Age discrimination outlawed as skills crisis deepens

IT trade group Intellect has welcomed a new anti-age-discrimination law introduced last week, and warned that firms that continue to discriminate on the basis of age will face major recruitment problems as the UK's technology skills crisis continues to deepen.

The new Employment Equality (Age) Regulations make it illegal for firms to discriminate against employees or job applicants under the age of 65 on the grounds of age and they can no longer specify an ideal applicant's age, and even the use of words such as "energetic" may potentially be discriminatory.

Beatrice Rogers, senior programme manager for the knowledge economy at Intellect, said empirical evidence suggests the IT sector is often guilty of ageism and the belief that older staff struggle to adapt to new technology is still widespread. "There is a perception problem [for older workers]," she added. "There are some companies out there that only want to recruit young people."

Rogers argued this discrimination was contributing to IT skills shortages at many firms and that the situation was likely to worsen as the UK population continues to age. "Any firm that discriminates based on age is limiting the skills pool they can choose from and with the number of science graduates falling no company can afford to do this," she said.

The new legislation came into force days after IT skill's body E-skills UK released its quarterly report, revealing that the skills gap continued to widen during the first quarter of 2006. According to the report "increased competition for staff was compounded by a significant fall in the number of ICT staff… looking for work during the first quarter of the year".

The report adds that average salaries for IT staff rose slightly as firms encountered skills shortages for systems development and programming positions.