Hi Pickled_newt. You have a point. Let me give my view on why there seems to be a discrimination against older people in matters of hiring, specially in the Phliipines. Part of it I think is cultural. I observe that when the U.S based call centers were sprouting, not a few were surprised when the call centers said that they are interested in hiring older people too. The general culture or perception here is that it is usual, if not better to hire fresh graduates. (The HR people can better explain this).
But what I know is that companies in the Philippines prefer fresh graduates because:
1) More often than not, they are single. Companies frown at hiring married people because they entail a lot of company benefits and resources. Example are maternity, paternity leaves and benefits. Since married people have bigger needs, they are prone to incur higher loans from the companies they work for. In short, I think there is a perception among companies that hiring older people would be more expensive. That is the reason that uso ang "early retirement" offers sa Philippines, precisely because it is costly to the companies. Early retirement is actually a company's subtle way of saying "You're too old pal, take a hike"
2) There is a view apparently that older people have other priorities, and pursuits in life and may be less concentrated in work, other than fresh graduates who have nothing better to do than focus on learning from their news jobs.
3) I hate to say this, but I am saying this in all honesty and from experience, there is a saying that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. From my experience, older people are less flexible and adaptable to the work than fresh grads who will abosrb and follow what you tell them since they have yet no experience. I don't know if this is culture, or just plain practicability.
If you ask me personally, age has never been a factor in hiring. The secretary we just hired in our office is just about my age, and yes, he's male, not female.
Age and gender had never been a factor in that hire. For me, as long as he or she gets the job done, no problem.
In the end I agree that there should be no discrimination.
But what the heck. When hiring, human resources personnel already have an idea of who and what they prefer to hire for a particuarly position. They just won't reveal it and would just prefer to be quiet by claiming they fully observe equal opportunities. Hypocritical? Your guess is as good as mine.