Many older workers, some who are long-term employees, feel in a state of shock when they are let go by their employer for no apparent reason. Their first reaction is commonly a state of disbelief that a age could be the reason for the termination or that they experienced illegal discrimination. I have represented public and private older employees who were pushed out of jobs because of their age and was successful in recovering financial compensation for their emotional pain and suffering and moneys for lost wages, both for past lost wages and projected future lost wages. If you think you are being pushed out of your job because of your age, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation.
A POLITE AND CORDIAL WORK ENVIRONMENT DOES NOT ALWAYS MEAN AGEISM DOES NOT EXIST IN THE EMPLOYER’S HIRING AND FIRING DECISIONS
Being in a state of shock and disbelief is commonly true when the employee’s superiors and the employer’s management were cordial in interacting with the employee. The terminated employee may search their own mind to see if they had any reason to believe their employer became dissatisfied with their work and feel at a loss when nothing comes to mind, which could lead to destructive self-doubt. You may read about a bill to remedy the age discrimination in
the ADEA itself in NJ Age Discrimination Attorney, Age Discrimination Against Executives and Workers Under Unfair Law - Bill Introduced to Remedy.
AGEISM IS PREJUDICE BASED SOLELY ON NUMERICAL AGE
First and foremost, a terminated older worker should realize ageism is prejudice based solely on numerical age. It has nothing to do with qualifications. It is a bias that devalues an older worker’s expertise, whitewashes their business accomplishments on behalf of the employer, attaches little importance to their contributions, and de-emphasizes the past and present excellence of their work. If your employer is genuinely dissatisfied with your work and is not manufacturing bogus excuses, a “pretext” for discrimination, when nothing else has changed, it may not be age discrimination, but there are other factors to consider.
BUT WAS I FIRED BECAUSE OF MY AGE OR SOMETHING ELSE?
To consider whether there is evidence of age discrimination, some factors are:
If you are bring shut out of meetings either in video conferencing platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, GoTo Meeting, Webex Webinars, Microsoft Teams, or in-person meetings;
Are you not being offered training to succeed? If the employer has instituted new methods, technology, and procedures and provides the training to succeed in the new formats to younger employees, but does not offer the training to you;
Are you being unfairly criticized? If you consistently received good Employee Performance Evaluations, and then you started receiving poor evaluations, it could be that your employer is planning to fire you, and devising a paper trail to have a bogus business justification, a legal defense, in the event you file a lawsuit for age discrimination. Make sure to print and maintain paper copies of all of your employee performance evaluations before you are fired, and store them at home, not in your work desk.
With the rapidly evolving AI technology used by some employers to evaluate the performance of their workers, there is a risk of adverse consequences for employees with certain legally protected characteristics, such as disability or age, and older workers may be unfairly targeted for termination, regardless of the employee’s actual work performance, based upon a discriminatory misconception that they are less productive. Subsequent sham performance evaluations may result, where their work is unfairly criticized, and employed by exploitive employers to establish a paper trail in the employees’ internal file, to manufacture a feigned reason to fire the employee should they be unsuccessful in efforts to coerce the employee into resigning.
If there were ageist jokes made in the workplace, either directly to you, in front of you, or disseminated in group emails;
If your supervisor asks you, “When do you think you will retire?” or “Do you have any retirement plans?”, it is evidence of age bias;
There is a flurry of new hires who are younger than you;
Employer states you are being let go in a “business reorganization” but only you or the older workers are being terminated;
The employer provides no reason for your termination and starts advertising for your position. If this happens, print out all advertisements for your position whether it be on company website, LinkedIn etc. Print these from your home computer logged on with your personal email, not business email and not from work computer;
Institutional ageism is prevalent throughout the corporate and business culture, in many companies and this has been true for at least decades with one major tech company’s CEO widely-circulated "young people are just smarter" quote from 2007. Even in 2024, it is still seen as acceptable to judge how valuable people may be to their company based on how old they are. You may read more on ageism in NJ Age Discrimination Attorney, I’m the Oldest Employee and the Only Employee Fired.
Don’t Sit on Your Rights
I have represented public and private older employees who were pushed out of jobs because of their age and was successful in recovering financial compensation for their emotional pain and suffering and moneys for lost wages, both for past lost wages and projected future lost wages. If you think you are being pushed out of your job because of your age, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation. I accept discrimination and whistleblower cases from all over New Jersey and have locations in Southern, Central and Northern NJ to meet with clients.
If You Quit Your Job, You May Lose Right to Prevail in a Lawsuit
In many instances of discrimination, if you quit your job, you may lose right to prevail in a lawsuit unless you first take certain legally required measures to preserve your job while you are still employed. If you are thinking of handing in a resignation letter, or think you will be fired (or have already been terminated), you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation to discuss your options.
Hope A. Lang, Attorney at Law represents workers throughout the entire state, including Hackensack, Jersey City, Newark, Irvington, Orange, East Orange, Trenton, Paterson, Montclair, Elizabeth, North Brunswick, Cherry Hill, Vineland, Union, Plainfield, Hamilton Township, Lakewood, Edison, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Franklin, Lakewood, and every NJ County, including Bergen, Hudson, Middlesex, Essex, Monmouth, Somerset, Ocean, Union, Camden, Passaic, Morris, Gloucester, Atlantic, Burlington, Camden Counties.