Requirement for “younger” employee was age discrimination

In Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce v Beck [EAT/0141/10], the EAT held that the tribunal was entitled to infer that the requirement for a “younger” employee amounted to unlawful age discrimination.

Mr Beck was the head of marketing at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (the bank) until he was made redundant on 8 May 2008. He was aged 42.

However, before Mr Beck was made redundant, the bank sent a person specification (PS) for his job to an employment agency. The PS stated that the person had to be a “younger, entrepreneurial profile (not a headline profile rain maker)”.

The tribunal found that the requirement for a “younger” person meant that the bank had to show that Mr Beck’s dismissal was not influenced by his age.

The tribunal rejected the bank’s explanation that the word “younger” meant “less senior”. If the PS meant to say that the bank was seeking a “less senior” person – it should have said so. The PS went through a series of drafts - but the requirement for a “younger” person remained – even though the bank’s HR executive had advised the bank that it would be inappropriate to search for a “younger” person.

Comment

Page 13 of the ACAS Code of Practice on age discrimination advises employers to avoid using words such as “young” in a person specification (or job advertisement) because such words may imply that they would prefer to employ a person of a certain age.

The advice will continue to be valid after the EHRC’s guides on the Equality Act 2010 come into force on 1 October 2010.