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Ann Hummond knew the office software like the back of her hand. Based in Yorkshire, England, she could untangle any spreadsheet snafu in her sleep. Over the past 23 years, she had worked her way up from a data entry clerk to her finance company’s administrative director, quietly becoming the person everyone relied on when things went sideways. She was, in short, indispensable. And then, one Tuesday morning last year, during a quarterly team meeting attended by directors, colleagues, and a team leader, her boss—who is nearly 10 years her senior—told her publicly, in a roomful of people: “You’re too old to do this job.” Subscribe to the Daily newsletter.Fast Company's trending stories delivered to you every day Privacy Policy | Fast Company Newsletters advertisement “I must have looked like a goldfish with my mouth open,” says Hummond, whose name and location have been changed for job security reasons. “I felt like I had been hit on the head with a shovel,” she says. Hummond, who speaks about her experience for the U.K.’s Age Without Limits campaign to raise awareness of ageism in England, says she didn’t break down in the meeting. “I didn’t want to give him the pleasure of seeing how much he had hurt me,” she says. Instead, she coolly finished her work day, gathered her belongings, “and then went home and fell to pieces.” Although she took two weeks off work, quitting at the age of 64 was not an option. “I can’t afford to give up working. I have lots of responsibilities and a family to support, and I need to build up more savings.” She also knows the prospect of finding a new job often collides with the cold reality of age bias, and is still working at the company. Age discrimination is one of the last accepted prejudices—tolerated in jokes, embedded in hiring, and often brushed off as pragmatism rather than bias. In the U.S., legislation against it has existed since the passage of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act in 1967. Yet, “Between 1997 and 2024, the number of age discrimination charges filed with the EEOC exceeded 15,000 in every year except four—three of which were right after the pandemic, which caused a dip in all employment discrimination litigation,” says Nicole Buonocore Porter, law professor at William & Mary Law School. Research suggests ageism is underreported to begin with. Jobs, across cultures, are quietly coded by age. Regardless of industry, workers experience age discrimination across their careers: negative stereotypes, discriminatory recruitment processes, being passed over for training opportunities, not being recognized. Some studies suggest a staggering 77 to 93% of older adults report experiences with ageism, and 42% of hiring managers admit they consider age when reviewing résumés. And most insidious of all: it compounds mentally and emotionally for those experiencing it, to the point where they really do feel like they might be incapable of doing great things at work. “It’s illegal, it’s wrong, and it’s bad for business,” says author, speaker and activist Ashton Applewhite. “Older people make up the fastest-growing segment of the workforce, both because they need to work and because they want to.” “Everyone, everywhere, is living longer, and everyone is old or future old.”
