Amir, from London, has spent the past four years looking for work. Now in his mid-50s, and with more than 17 years of customer service experience, he feels like the jobs he has been applying for match his skill set, but employers haven’t been giving him a chance.
Back in 2017, he was put onto a two-year jobs programme at the local job centre after weeks of having no success with employment. However, he felt like people were starting to think he was to blame for not finding work, despite his best efforts and applying for more than 1,500 jobs.
“What initially starts off as help and encouragement in order to find work then begins to deteriorate the longer you have been out of work,” he says.
“It gets to the point where people speak to you in a condescending and patronising manner and you are told that you aren't trying hard enough, like it’s your fault.”
“I have spoken to other older job seekers who tell me the same thing and how downbeat they feel about the current situation.”
While the experience was disheartening, it never stopped Amir looking for and applying for jobs in his local area, in everything from high-street food chains to the postal industry.
At first, he didn’t consider that his age was the issue. But after a year of being on the job programme he started noticing more companies asking questions about age in their application forms, making him suspicious that companies were singling out older workers.
“Some [job applications] ask you to select an age range and give you the option of selecting the ‘prefer not to say’ tab if you want.
“The problem with that is you wonder if the employer thinks you must be in the ‘older’ category if you are not willing to state your age group and doesn’t bother to process your application.”
