Are Job Ads Targeting Young Workers Breaking the Law?

Several pending lawsuits seeking to determine whether employers are breaking the law by posting job ads targeting younger workers could help improve job opportunities for older Americans, according to National Public Radio . One suit filed by the Communications Workers of America claims that T-Mobile, Facebook, and other companies discriminate by excluding older workers from seeing their ads. In December, a Facebook official contended that tailoring ads is not unlawful, provided the recruitment campaign overall is designed to reach all demographic groups. Although workplace civil rights law bans discrimination against workers 40 and older, employee advocates say recruiters sometimes exclude older workers by narrowing how and where they seek candidates. Other recent lawsuits have challenged whether an employer can recruit exclusively on college campuses and the legality of capping the number of years of experience an applicant can have. "We see that this is one of the factors that keeps older workers out of the job market after a job loss," says the Communications Workers of America's Jody Calemine. She calls targeted advertising a new frontier for discrimination. "Hiring discrimination is very difficult to prove, because the applicant is on the outside looking in," notes AARP Foundation attorney Laurie McCann. In such cases, applicants do not allege the employer discriminated against them personally, but that the recruiting process itself is biased. "The issue is whether or not workers can even get into the courthouse door to challenge that practice that clearly screens out older workers," McCann says.