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Age discrimination is the main problem faced by candidates over 45 when applying for a job, an eJobs survey published by Agerpres shows. One of the main reasons is that they have too much experience for the jobs on offer.
64% of survey participants consider age an impediment when looking for a new job. The next most common obstacles candidates over 45 say they face when hiring are having too much experience, high salary expectations and lack of career opportunities in the field they are trained for.
More than 59% of employees over 45 feel that although there are enough jobs for their age group, young people are preferred. Nearly 20% believe there are not enough vacancies for them, while 14% believe that the job offers do not overlap with their field of training.
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“Employers also recognize that this is the most challenging category of candidates to hire, with the main reasons cited being low levels of digitalization and flexibility. On the other hand, we also have to take into account that they represent the age group that applies the least: out of the 1.1 million applications we register monthly on the platform, only 103,000 come from this segment of candidates”, said Raluca Dumitra, Head of Marketing at eJobs Romania.
The eJobs survey also shows that the challenges mentioned by those over 45 lead them to make certain concessions when it comes to choosing a new career opportunity. When asked what compromises they would be willing to make for a job, over 45.3% said they would retrain, 16.5% would accept a lower salary than their current one, 8.4% would move to another country, 7% would relocate to another city and just as many would be willing to learn to work on a computer. On the other hand, 15.8% of respondents would not be willing to compromise.
“Although these candidates have a number of advantages over younger candidates – they are very stable, punctual, have a higher degree of endurance on certain levels – unfortunately, they are also at a disadvantage in the eyes of employers when it comes to their level of digitalization, the ease with which they can integrate into young teams or the flexibility they show in doing new things or going out of their comfort zone,” says Raluca Dumitra.
According to the eJobs survey, 38% of them either don’t use technology in their current job or are constantly struggling to use it. In addition, 53.4% only express their opinion in the team when asked, while 12.8% do not express their views at all in the workplace for fear of losing their job to someone younger. The eJobs survey also shows that 41.9% of candidates over the age of 45 either don’t have common topics of discussion with their colleagues or believe there are differences in mindset due to age.
The survey was conducted from 26 July to 10 August among a sample of 1,276 professionals/employees with higher education, managers, workers, unemployed, homemakers and employers/associates who are in the 45+ age category.