Age - Background

 ‘By the time I started selling at the farmers’ markets I’d been in the press quite a lot. People knew the story and were familiar with it, but I don’t think that was the only reason it sold well. Publicity isn’t a reason for people to keep coming back for it again and again. I had a genuinely good product.’
 
You don’t have to be an older person to be successful. Many young people have good business ideas. At the age of 14, Edinburgh-born Frazer Doherty went out to the supermarket with a couple of pounds in his pocket. He bought some fruit and sugar and made a few jars of jam. Four years later his SuperJams brand is on the shelves of 130 Waitrose stores.
 
 

The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations (2006) were introduced to protect people from discrimination in the workplace (including those in vocational training) on the basis of age. The legislation protects both older and young workers. Young people may face ‘ageism’ in the workplace and assumptions are made about their lack of experience, abilities, reliability, the content and even the quality of ‘modern qualifications’. For more detailed information regarding Employment Equality (Age) Regulations see the EHRC website.

Assumptions and attitudes surrounding employment of or training of young people is often based on hearsay or wrong information and should be challenged rather than accepted.

Some employers perceive Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check as an additional barrier to providing work experience or employment for young people. It is highly likely that supervisory or mentoring staff working with people under 16 years old will need a CRB check and employers, especially SMEs(small to medium sized employers), can be reluctant to add this to their costs of employing/providing work experience for KS3 and KS4 pupils.

Accessing some STEM Careers can provide extra challenges for young people with regard to Health and Safety issues, not only in the more obvious areas e.g engineering and science but also the associated risks when working in Technology careers.
 
 
Health and safety issues are often used by those not wanting to offer work or training to young people, and STEM careers can carry additional Health and Safety hazards. It is always worth checking regulations from reliable sources as to what they can and cannot do in the workplace.
 
People under 18 years old are not allowed to use high-risk lifting machinery unless they have the necessary maturity and competence, which includes having successfully completed appropriate training. Examples of high-risk lifting equipment which normally should not be operated by young people include cranes, construction site hoists and fork-lift trucks.
 
There may be substantial risks associated with the use of lifting accessories, for example during ‘slinging’, and employers need to assess whether such work is appropriate for young people. However, young people may use high-risk lifting machinery during training as long as they are adequately supervised. They should also be supervised after training if considered not sufficiently mature.