Human Resource Blog

ADEA in North Carolina

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How does the ADEA affect our North Carolina company?

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act affects many companies across the country, including many companies in North Carolina. However, the ADEA may not affect all companies. In order for a company to be covered by the ADEA, the company needs to meet any of the following criteria:
• The company needs to be a government agency at either a local, state or federal level.
• The company can be an employment agency.
• The business needs to deal in some form of interstate commerce and have at least 20 employees that work for it. Those 20 employees need to have been employed by the company for at least 20 weeks out of the preceding year.
When a company is covered by the ADEA, it is prohibited from discriminating against employees based on the age of the employee as long as the employee is over the age of 40. The Act does not cover employees that are younger than the age of 40 or non-employees, such as customers or clients.
The employer may not discriminate against employees or job applications during any personnel-making time, such as hiring, termination, promotion, or otherwise. For example, the employer may not advertise a certain position to a person based on the age of the person. Thus, an employer cannot state that a particular job would be perfect for a student or for a recent college graduate.
However, there are times in which the employer may have to discriminate against an employee or potential employee based reasons that are indirectly impacted by the age of the employee or the candidate. For example, if the employee is unable to perform some or all of the job requirements of a particular job because of his or her age, then the employer has a right to discriminate against the employee by terminating him or her or by transferring him or her. However, in such an event, the employer is required to provide evidence that the decision was based on the qualifications of the employee and not on the employee’s age. CB