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Age limits to be set for jobs
07 February 2010 By Kieron Wood
Irish companies may be allowed to impose lower age limits on job applicants, following a European court ruling that employers can bar people as young as 30 from applying for jobs because they are too old.
Colin Wolf applied to join the fire service in Frankfurt, but was turned down because he would have been 31 on his start date, one year older than the maximum permitted under local regulations.
Germany argued before the Court of Justice of the European Union that recruits had to be under 30 years of age, so that they could do 15 or 20 years of active service before being moved off frontline duties.
The European Union’s Equal Treatment Directive allows employers to treat workers of varying ages differently when there is a ‘‘genuine occupational requirement’’.
This was the first reported case by the ECJ - the former name of the Court of Justice - to consider when age might be a genuine occupational requirement. A spokesman for the Equality Authority in Dublin said:
‘‘This judgment does appear to allow for a broader discretion to lower age limits than has previously existed. This could result in a change in the way in which the law is interpreted in Ireland. Employers may be able to plead lower age limits in jobs which require a physical ability, such as lifting.
‘‘However, the imposition of a restriction based simply on a person’s birth date, rather than an examination of the person’s physical capabilities, is sure to raise questions of interpretation
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