TL;DR

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) prohibits employment discrimination against people aged 40 and older in the United States. It covers hiring, firing, pay, promotions, and any other terms of employment. Violations carry real financial penalties, and age discrimination claims consistently rank among the most-filed charges with the EEOC.

What the ADEA Covers

The ADEA applies to employers with 20 or more employees, including staffing agencies and placement firms. It was signed into law in 1967 and has been amended several times. The core prohibition is straightforward: employers cannot use age as a factor in employment decisions for workers 40 and older. There is no upper age limit. A 70-year-old candidate has the same ADEA protections as a 42-year-old.

The law covers every stage of the employment relationship. On the front end, that means job postings cannot specify preferred age ranges, use coded language like "recent graduate" or "digital native" when those terms screen out older applicants, or set graduation year requirements that function as age proxies. On the back end, layoffs and reductions in force that disproportionately eliminate older workers face ADEA scrutiny, even when individual decisions appear neutral.

The Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA), passed in 1990, added specific requirements for severance agreements. Any agreement waiving ADEA claims must give workers 21 days to consider (45 days in a group layoff), and 7 days to revoke after signing. Employers who shortcut these windows cannot enforce the waiver.

Why It Matters for Recruitment

Staffing agencies are directly covered by the ADEA, not just the end-client employers. When an agency screens candidates and decides who to present to clients, those screening decisions fall under ADEA jurisdiction. If a client asks for "candidates under 50" or "someone with less than 15 years of experience," the agency cannot comply with that request without violating federal law. The request itself is illegal, and fulfilling it makes the agency a co-discriminator.

The EEOC filed 16,911 age discrimination charges in fiscal year 2023, representing 13.6% of all charges received. Age discrimination charges have a higher rate of reasonable cause findings than many other charge types, in part because the patterns are often visible in data: layoff lists, promotion rates, and hiring cohorts. Agencies that track and retain this data are better positioned to defend decisions; agencies that do not track it cannot reconstruct what happened.

Practical compliance requires auditing job descriptions for age-proxy language on a regular cycle. Terms like "energetic," "fast-paced environment requiring quick learners," and "new to career" all carry risk when they are used to screen candidates. Training recruiters to recognize client requests that function as age filters is equally important.

In Practice

A regional [staffing agency](/glossary/staffing-agency) receives a brief from a technology company client: "We need someone junior, ideally 2-3 years of experience, who will grow with us." The recruiter presents five candidates. Three are under 35; two are over 45 with 2-3 years of relevant experience in the specific technology stack required. The client passes on the two older candidates and asks, "Can you find someone a bit more junior?"

The recruiter flags the situation to the agency's compliance lead. The compliance lead contacts the client and explains that experience level is a valid filter, but age is not, and that the agency cannot apply age-based filters in its screening. The client is asked to restate the requirement in terms of specific skills and experience range rather than implied age. The client agrees, reframes the brief, and the agency continues the search.

This conversation protects both parties. The client avoids a discriminatory hiring pattern; the agency avoids being named in an EEOC charge as a co-respondent. Agencies that have these conversations proactively keep clients and stay compliant; agencies that quietly comply with age-filtered briefs eventually face charges.

Key Facts