Broward County Employment Law Blog

It's inconceivable to imagine that any employer would pass up a highly skilled employee, who can contribute better quality work than his or her competing job applicants, just because of superficial characteristics like race and skin color. The thing is, it happens every day in Florida and it usually goes completely unnoticed.

After all, how is a job applicant going to know that he didn't get the job because he was black, Hispanic or Asian? How is a worker going to know that her boss passed her up for a promotion because her skin is a darker shade of color than her coworker?

Age discrimination typically isn't all that overt. Companies do not put out ads saying they won't hire anyone over 45 or that only people in their 20s should apply. They know well that age discrimination is illegal.

That does not mean they don't do it. They try to hide it. They try to cover it up with something else and make it appear not to be age-based at all.

For the last several decades, Americans have enjoyed strong protections against age discrimination, codified largely in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Prior to the passage of the ADEA, workers in many fields found themselves pushed out simply because younger workers rose up to fill their positions. With the protections afforded in the ADEA, workers have tools to protect their rights as they age in the workforce and potentially experience discrimination because of it.

If you have concerns about your employer's attitude toward your age, it is wise to understand the boundaries of what an employer can and cannot do in regard to your age. A strong grasp of the law and high-quality legal resources may offer the guidance you need at a crucial moment in your career.

Many times, it often seems like the more technical and high-paying a job is, the harder it is for women or other minorities to break into that field. While groups that have historically experienced discrimination have made massive strides toward better representation in many parts of the economy, they still struggle to find adequate representation at the highest levels in many industries.

Those fields can include information technology, engineering, science, medicine and other highly educated career paths. Even women who work as highly paid attorneys can experience discrimination in their work. For the women trying to break down the barriers in these fields, it is often difficult to move forward after an experience of discrimination.