Comment : Time to take notice

With so much going on around us worldwide, the October introduction of new age discrimination laws could very easily arrive in the optical world unnoticed.

That, according to the Employer’s Forum on Age, could be costly, with the possibility of rejected job applicants and existing employees citing their age, both young and old, as a basis for legal complaint.

But what exactly does the anti-ageism legislation mean to employers in the optical business? Will practices now have to have every job advertisement checked over to ensure they fall within the legislation? Will there be scores of older practitioners alleging they haven’t been promoted because of age, or the newly-qualified protesting they were missed out because they were too young? And what about the major swing towards youth, with some 300 newly qualified optometrists joining the ranks on a yearly basis?