Several of the nation's biggest employers, including Target, Kroger and Home Depot, require job applicants to disclose their date of birth in the online application, a practice that employment discrimination lawyers say seems a little fishy.
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Older workers, especially those that have been out of work for any significant period of time, are having an increasingly difficult time landing jobs in the recession because employers have their pick of younger candidates. A recent Pew report found that those who are older than 55 are most likely to remain jobless for a year or more, and the number and percentage of age discrimination charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have grown noticeably since 2006, rising from 16,548 charges, or 21.8 percent of all such EEOC filings, to 22,778, or 24.4 percent, in fiscal year 2009.
"Some older employees just look old," Heathfield said. "And it's so darn subtle -- an older person can come in for an interview and not get the job, and they'll be informed that a more qualified candidate was hired. They'll never know or be able to prove that two or three people on that committee kept thinking, 'This person's really old.' I'd hate to be looking for a job right now, truthfully."
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