Quick Answer:
Age discrimination is treating a worker or applicant less favourably because of their age. It is unlawful in Australia under the Age Discrimination Act 2004, the general protections in the Fair Work Act, and every state and territory anti-discrimination law. It runs in both directions: an assumption that a 62 year old will not learn a new system and an assumption that a 22 year old will leave within a year are the same offence. Most of it happens in ordinary decisions rather than obvious hostility, which is why the examples below matter more than the definition.
What this guide covers
- What Counts as Age Discrimination
- Examples in Job Ads and Recruitment
- Examples in Interviews and Selection
- Examples in Pay, Progression and Development
- Examples in Restructures and Redundancy
- Examples in Retirement and Exit
- Examples Aimed at Younger Workers
- Examples in Everyday Conduct
- What the 2025 Data Shows
- The Older Worker Myths, and the One with a Grain of Truth
- What the Law Says and Where to Complain
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Counts as Age Discrimination
Age discrimination is treating someone less favourably because of their age, or applying a rule that disadvantages a particular age group without good reason.
It covers workers and job applicants, and it protects every age, not just older ones.
Two forms matter.
Direct age discrimination is treating someone worse because of their age.
Indirect age discrimination is a rule applied to everyone that disadvantages one age group and cannot be justified, such as requiring a qualification that has only existed for six years for a role that has existed for thirty.
Intent is not the test. Most age discrimination in Australian workplaces is not hostility. It is a manager making a reasonable-sounding prediction about someone based on their age, and acting on it.
For the definition and the legal framework in more detail, see our companion piece on what age discrimination in the workplace is. This article is about what it looks like in practice.
Examples in Job Ads and Recruitment
This is where age discrimination is most common and most documented, because the evidence is written down.
- Coded language: “Digital native”, “recent graduate”, “high energy”, “young and dynamic team”, “fresh thinking”. Each signals an age preference without naming one.
- Coded language the other way: “Mature and settled”, “someone at the right life stage”, “no longer chasing promotions”.
- Maximum experience caps: “No more than five years’ experience” excludes older applicants far more effectively than a stated age limit would.
- Graduate-only pathways for roles that do not require a recent degree, closing the route for career changers in their forties and fifties.
- Requiring a date of birth or graduation year on an application form when neither is needed to assess the role.
- Screening by photograph, or by inferring age from a LinkedIn profile before shortlisting.
- Cutting a CV at fifteen years as an internal convention, then reading the truncation as a lack of depth.
Job ads are the easiest age discrimination to prove and the easiest to fix
An advertisement is a permanent, dated, published document. It survives the hiring decision, it needs no witness, and it can be produced years later. Running every ad through one question, does this describe the work or does it describe a person, removes most of your exposure in about five minutes per role.
Examples in Interviews and Selection
- Asking when someone graduated, or what year they started work, as a proxy for age
- Asking an older candidate about retirement plans, energy levels, or whether they would be comfortable reporting to a younger manager
- Asking a younger candidate whether they are planning to travel, or how long they intend to stay
- Asking about family or caring responsibilities in a way that only surfaces for one age group
- Describing the team’s average age, or the social culture, in a way that invites a candidate to withdraw
- Marking an older candidate down for “cultural fit” with no defined criteria behind the phrase
- Assuming an experienced candidate would be bored, would want too much money, or would not accept the role, and never asking them
That last one is the most common of all. Deciding on someone’s behalf that they would not want a job, and never putting it to them, is a decision made because of age.
Examples in Pay, Progression and Development
- Excluding older workers from training on new systems because “they are winding down”
- Reserving leadership development, secondments or conference budgets for people under a certain age
- Passing over an older worker for promotion on the basis of “runway” or “years left in the role”
- Passing over a younger worker on the basis of “needing more seasoning” where the work does not require it
- Giving older workers the maintenance and legacy work and younger workers the new projects
- Performance feedback that describes someone as “set in their ways” or “resistant to change” without a specific behaviour attached
- Succession plans that route around anyone over fifty-five
Examples in Restructures and Redundancy
Restructures concentrate age discrimination risk because decisions are made quickly, in groups, and often with cost in mind.
- Selection criteria weighted toward recent qualifications rather than capability
- Choosing the most expensive people, where salary correlates with tenure and tenure correlates with age
- Offering older workers a package first, framed as doing them a favour
- Deciding an older worker “was probably thinking about retiring anyway”
- Redeployment searches run less thoroughly for older workers
- Retaining a younger worker with less capability on the grounds of potential
The pattern is what gets noticed. A redundancy round with a clear age skew invites a general protections claim, and under those provisions the employer carries the onus of proving age was not a reason.
Examples in Retirement and Exit
- Raising retirement in a performance conversation the worker did not raise it in
- Repeated “just checking in on your plans” questions that no younger worker receives
- Treating a stated retirement intention as a resignation and acting on it early
- Applying a compulsory retirement age where none lawfully applies to the role
- Withdrawing training, projects or client relationships once someone mentions retiring
- Excluding older workers from flexible or phased arrangements offered to others
Examples Aimed at Younger Workers
Age discrimination against younger workers is real, less discussed, and covered by exactly the same law.
- Assuming a young worker will leave within a year, and withholding development on that basis
- Dismissing a contribution in a meeting with a reference to experience rather than to the substance
- Giving the least desirable shifts, tasks or on-call rotations to the youngest workers by default
- Setting a minimum years of experience requirement well above what the role needs
- Excluding younger workers from client-facing work on presentation grounds
- “You’ll understand when you’ve been here a while” used to close down a legitimate concern, including a safety concern
That final one carries an additional risk. Where a young worker’s safety concern is dismissed because of their age, you have both an age discrimination problem and a work health and safety problem.
Examples in Everyday Conduct
Where age discrimination shows up as behaviour rather than decisions, it is age-based harassment, and your work health and safety duty applies alongside anti-discrimination law.
- “Boomer” and “OK boomer” used to dismiss a colleague, and the equivalents aimed at younger staff
- Jokes about memory, hearing, technology, retirement homes or hips
- Jokes about entitlement, attention spans, avocado toast or participation trophies
- Mimicking someone’s difficulty with a system rather than showing them
- Excluding older or younger workers from social events by design
- Birthday cards and milestone jokes that a recipient has asked people to stop
Our guide to discriminatory harassment covers the conduct side across every protected attribute, including how liability attaches when it is tolerated.
What the 2025 Data Shows
The Australian Human Rights Commission and the Australian HR Institute survey HR professionals on age in the workplace. The most recent results are worth reading closely.
| Finding | Figure |
|---|---|
| HR professionals who classify workers aged 51 to 55 as “older” | 24%, up from 10% in 2023 |
| Open to hiring workers aged 50 to 64 to a large extent | 56% |
| Open to hiring workers aged 65 and over to a large extent | 28% |
| Will not hire workers aged 65 and over at all | 18% |
| Say their recruitment practices negatively affect older workers | 20% |
| Say their recruitment practices negatively affect younger workers | 23% |
| Reported losing key skills when older workers left | 60%, while only 13% consistently capture that knowledge |
Australian Human Rights Commission and Australian HR Institute, survey of 148 HR professionals conducted between 31 March and 5 May 2025. The sample is small, so treat these as indicative of professional attitudes rather than as national prevalence figures.
Three things stand out. The age at which a worker is classified as “older” has fallen sharply, with the share treating 51 to 55 as older more than doubling in two years.
Nearly one in five say outright they will not hire anyone 65 or over, which is a statement of intention to discriminate.
And the figure for younger workers is slightly worse than for older ones, which is not where most organisations think their risk sits.
The last row is the commercial argument. Six in ten lost key skills when older workers left, and roughly one in eight has a way of capturing that knowledge.
The Older Worker Myths, and the One with a Grain of Truth
Age discrimination is usually built on a prediction rather than a prejudice, so it is worth testing the predictions.
| The assumption | The problem with it |
|---|---|
| “They will not stay long” | Applied to older workers as retirement risk and to younger workers as flight risk. Both are predictions about an individual made from a group average, and both are the definition of age discrimination |
| “They will not pick up the technology” | Testable in an interview in ten minutes. If it matters, assess it. If you assess it by age instead, that is unlawful |
| “They will cost too much” | Salary expectation is a question, not an inference. Assuming it from experience and screening on that basis is indirect age discrimination |
| “They will not fit the team” | Cultural fit without defined criteria is where most unexamined age preference ends up |
| “Older workers get injured more” | Partly true on the numbers, and still an unlawful basis for a hiring decision. See below |
The injury point deserves an honest answer rather than a denial, because employers do look at the data.
Safe Work Australia’s figures for 2023–24 show serious workers compensation claims per million hours worked rising with age: 5.8 for workers aged 25 to 34, 9.5 for those aged 55 to 64, and 10.0 for those 65 and over. The frequency difference is real.
What it does not show is carelessness. Older bodies recover more slowly, so the same cumulative load produces a claim where a younger body absorbed it.
The driver is the task, not the worker, which is why the control is task design rather than hiring. Our guide to manual handling injuries covers how to engineer that risk out.
And in any case, an employer who declines to hire someone because of a group-level injury statistic has discriminated on the basis of age.
The lawful response to a real risk is to fix the task, not to filter the applicant.
What the Law Says and Where to Complain
Unlike religion, age is covered by a dedicated federal Act, so the enforcement picture is straightforward.
| Law | Where a complaint goes |
|---|---|
| Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cth) | Australian Human Rights Commission, then the federal courts if conciliation does not resolve it |
| Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), general protections | Fair Work Commission. The employer carries the onus of proving age was not a reason for the action |
| State and territory anti-discrimination law | Your state or territory anti-discrimination or equal opportunity body |
| Work health and safety law | Your WHS regulator, where age-based harassment is a psychosocial hazard you are not managing |
Complaints go to Australian bodies. Guidance that points to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is describing a different country’s law and has no application to an Australian workplace.
Time limits are short for general protections matters involving dismissal, so a worker considering that route should get advice from a union, a community legal centre or a lawyer early rather than late.
Most age discrimination is written down before anyone notices it
Sentrient brings EEO and respect at work training, your recruitment and behaviour policies and your complaint records together for Australian organisations, so the standard is taught and the evidence exists.
Where to Start
Pull your last ten job advertisements and read them for words that describe a person rather than the work. That audit takes an hour and removes the most provable age discrimination exposure you have.
Then look at who attended training and who was offered development in the last two years, plotted by age. If there is a shape to it, you have found the second one.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What Are the Most Common Examples of Age Discrimination at Work?
Coded language in job ads, questions about retirement or graduation year in interviews, exclusion from training and development, redundancy selection that skews by age, and age-based jokes and comments. Recruitment produces the most examples because the decisions are documented.
2. Is Age Discrimination Against Younger Workers Illegal Too?
Yes. The Age Discrimination Act protects every age. Assuming a young worker will not stay, dismissing their contributions by reference to experience, or defaulting the worst shifts to the youngest staff are all age discrimination.
3. Can a Job Ad Ask for a “Recent Graduate” or a “Digital Native”?
Both are risky. Neither describes the work, and both signal an age preference. Describe the skills and the qualification actually required instead. A job advertisement is dated, published and permanent, which makes it the easiest evidence of age discrimination to produce.
4. Can an Employer Ask About Retirement Plans?
Raising retirement with an older worker who has not raised it themselves is difficult to justify and is a common feature of age discrimination complaints. If you are workforce planning, ask everyone about their plans in a consistent process rather than asking the people you assume are near retirement.
5. Is There a Compulsory Retirement Age in Australia?
There is no general compulsory retirement age. A small number of roles have age requirements set by specific legislation. Outside those, applying a retirement age is age discrimination.
6. Do Older Workers Really Have More Workplace Injuries?
Serious claim frequency does rise with age: Safe Work Australia recorded 5.8 claims per million hours worked for workers aged 25 to 34 and 10.0 for those 65 and over in 2023-24. That reflects slower recovery from the same cumulative load rather than carelessness, and the control is task design. Declining to hire someone because of that statistic is age discrimination.
7. Where Do I Report Age Discrimination in Australia?
The Australian Human Rights Commission under the Age Discrimination Act, the Fair Work Commission where adverse action was taken, or your state or territory anti-discrimination body. Where it takes the form of harassment, your WHS regulator also has jurisdiction.
8. What Evidence Helps in an Age Discrimination Complaint?
Job advertisements, position descriptions, interview notes, selection matrices, performance records, redundancy criteria, and messages or emails containing age references. Patterns across a team or a redundancy round matter as much as any single document.
Sources and further reading
- Australian Human Rights Commission and Australian HR Institute, employer biases against older and younger generations, a survey of 148 HR professionals conducted 31 March to 5 May 2025, the source of all figures in the data table
- Safe Work Australia, Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2025, the source of the serious claim frequency rates by age group for 2023–24
- Australian Human Rights Commission, making a complaint
- Age Discrimination Act 2004 (Cth), the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) general protections, and the state and territory anti-discrimination Acts
Written for Australian employers. Anti-discrimination duties differ between jurisdictions and this article is general information rather than legal advice. Confirm how the law applies to your organisation with your own advisers.
Last reviewed: September 2026
Read More About Workplace Discrimination:
- What is age discrimination in the workplace
- How to identify, prevent and respond to discriminatory harassment in the workplace
- Religious discrimination at work: how to handle it in Australia
- How to deal with discrimination in the workplace as an employer
- Principles of equal employment opportunity every employer should know
- How to deal with gender discrimination in the workplace
