Number of discrimination claims brought to employment tribunal |
The number of age discrimination claims accepted by employment tribunals in 2010-11 has risen by nearly one-third (30.8%) to 6,800, according to Tribunals Service statistics.
The previous year also saw a similar rise (36.8%) in age discrimination claims, from 3,800 in 2008-09 to 5,200 in 2009-10.
Overall, the statistics, which cover the period from 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2011, show that the number of claims has decreased by 8% on the previous year, with a total of 218,100 claims made this year, compared to 236,100 in 2009-10. However, this year’s figure remains up 44% on 2008-09.
Adrian Crawford, employment partner at law firm Kingsley Napley, comments: “It is noteworthy that while age discrimination claims are still a long way behind sex discrimination, they are now catching up with disability claims and have overtaken race-related claims to be the third most frequent type of discrimination action.
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“Everybody has an age so anyone can potentially formulate an age discrimination claim. This may explain why there are already so many claims even before we have felt the impact of the abolition of the default retirement age, which is likely to lead to a huge increase in age discrimination claims.”
Further information on the employment tribunal statistics is available at XpertHR.
