I recently applied for a job as an installation technician. I got pretty far in the interview process but I was called afterwards and they said they wouldn’t hire me because I am under 21 ( I’m 20). The listing did not say there was an age requirement. Should I talk to a lawyer about this? It sounds like age discrimination, which is illegal IIRC.
That would be asinine. In all likelihood, though, the refusal to hire under 21 has to do with their insurance rates and liability. Installation techs usually drive company vehicles, or drive their personal vehicles under company insurance coverage during working hours. If their insurance won’t cover you on the road, and your insurance rightly refuses to cover you while driving as a contractor for a company, then you legally cannot perform your job duties - driving to clients. Virtually all states require certain minimum levels of liability insurance for every vehicle.
And this is why the world is going to hell in a handbasket- because kids can’t get past the whole immediate gratification thing. There’s no moment’s thought of “Gee, if I wait X months, I’ll be 21! Maybe if I make a good enough impression during this hiring round, they’ll be willing to reconsider me then!” Nope… it’s all ‘let me sue those MF’ers!’
Sure. Go ahead and sue. And be sure to put on every single other job application in the meantime that the reason you’re not working right now is because you’re in the middle of a lawsuit.
Yeah, on what grounds would you sue? What is your loss? You need to prove real loss in order to sue, from what I understand.*
*Not much, seems to me. You are within a year of being insurance-eligible and then you can re-apply. The only oversight I see here is the company’s failure to disclose that there may be an age limit due to insurance regulations. But so what. This didn’t harm you materially; it only temporarily annoyed and inconvenienced you. This is not grounds for a lawsuit.
The Federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 only applies to those over age 40. There may be individual state laws that apply in your case, but I’m not a lawyer or an HR manager.
No, don’t sue. However, you have a right to be pissed off. They wasted your time interviewing you if they had a hard age limit like that. I assume it was was just stupidity on their part because they wasted their own time too. If I could sue everyone whose stupidity has inconvenienced me, I’d be a rich man.
At least, I’d be rich until the lawsuits against me were settled.
What are your state laws on the subject?
The ADEA (federal age discrimination law) does not apply under the age of 40.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) only forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states do have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination.
The listing probably didn’t say a lot of things, that’s just one of the things they didn’t mention in the listing. Besides, if you sue them based on leaving that out of the listing what are you going to do when they counter sue you for withholding your age until so late in the interview process?
No. Don’t sue. Because if you win, my rates will go up.
Doesn’t matter, they will anyway. The rates are not based on their cost of delivering service, but rather what you are willing to pay before you call and threaten to cancel and really mean it.
Any job you have to sue to get/keep is not a job worth having. If they don’t want you, move on.