Year 12s: what will be the first way you research your future options? >>

New Age Discrimination Laws and Minimum Wage

Scotsman1988

I was just reading an article on the BBC News website about the new Age Discrimination Laws coming into effect in October. It raises the point about the National Minimum Wage and how it discriminates against Age. How do you think a court would interpret the Law if a legal challenge was mounted based on that discrimination by the Government?

Reply 1

guccilittlepiggy

isn't the reason for the nmw because certain groups of people have different levels of experience and generally older workers tend to produce more revenue for their employers so the wage just reflects that. and if all ages were given equal wages then its likely that employers would favour the older workers and so youth unemployment would increase, so in effect the nmw is actually beneficial to younger workers as it increases their employability.

Reply 2

Scotsman1988

yeah but if the wages were equal the Law would still require employers to treat everyone the same as discrimination based on age would be illegal. It's a strange one. Will be interesting to see if anyone challanges it and see how the courts would interpret it.