The Future Of Our Nation Is In Trouble

UnionTrack

Remember when you were a freshly graduated high school student, eager to get started at your newly acquired job? Excited to learn new things, make money, and more importantly, start a career. That is the reality for the youth today. 

Upper management has a different perspective to them. They see them as less able, less intelligent, and overall incompetent workers. All this information being based on their age, of course. Age discrimination is better known to affect the older generations, but it affects the younger generations the same while being unrecognized and underreported. 

According to Ageism.com, “If a younger worker receives stereotyping based on their age, they may not climb the career ladder the way they could if they were instead judged based on their capabilities or abilities at work.” As someone who is of the younger age demographic, I see this constantly at my workplace. There is a staggering number of people that are of working age (35+) that I have tried to train for a managerial position that couldn’t  manage themselves. The few people that are my age and that, in my opinion, have every quality needed to manage a crew of people, are disregarded just because they’re young.

There's no shortage of age discrimination for younger Americans. Workism.com cites a study done by intelligent.com that found "38% of employers avoid hiring recent college graduates in favor of older employees." The study also found that manager say, "58% say recent college graduates are unprepared for the workforce." The statistics don't lie. There is a bias towards older generations when looking for applicants for jobs. 

Workism.com also states that age discrimination towards the youth is nothing new, as they explain by saying, "Paul Fairie, a researcher at the University of Calgary, posted a brilliant thread on Twitter detailing how each generation complains about the younger generation – going back to 1894. He could even have gone further back to sometime around 300-600 BC, when Greeks complained that children “began to be the tyrants, not the slaves, of their households.”

According to HRO.com, “…[A]ge discrimination is most experienced by baby boomers (36.8%) and Gen Z (39.7%).” Age discrimination comes in many ways, such as jokes, harassment, missing out on promotions, job assignments, and even as significant as not even getting a job. Age discrimination can be a deterrent in someone’s aspirations to move up in their job. 

While it’s true, elderly people also experience age discrimination, but our youth is the future of this nation. Without them, we have nothing. Employers should be finding ways to develop the youth, not knock them down the ladder they’re trying to climb. Or even worse yet, taking the pegs out of that ladder altogether. 

The opportunities that older Americans were granted, and eventually took advantage of, were given to them by the older generation when they were the younger ones. There should not be prejudice held against the younger Americans, just as there should not be prejudice held against the older Americans. We need to embrace the new way of doing things, and accept that the way things were 50 years ago are not the way they are now. The same thing can be said about the age of the people in the workforce. 

According to the US Department of Labor, “The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects certain applicants and employees 40 years of age and older from discrimination on the basis of age in hiring, promotion, discharge, compensation, or terms, conditions or privileges of employment.” This states that only people that are 40+ years of age have legal grounds to sue for wrongful treatment because of their age. Whether or not you the reader agree with this, the fact of the matter is that our youth that is under 40 are the ones facing the most discrimination due to their age, and they cant even do anything about it. 

Age discrimination is one of those things that really is not talked about enough in the regards of young people, even though it can affect them in the same ways. It can stop their progress pushing up the career ladder at a singular workplace, or at multiple. It can lead to workplace harassment by older people, which damages a young person easily influenced mindset while they’re still learning about life. It can even lead to not getting jobs just solely based on their age. Ageism is better known to affect the older generations, but it affects younger generations all the same while being unrecognized and underreported.