Does Finland suffer from age discrimination in employment?    Yes – but not what we in the US might expect.

According to the Finnish online yle uutiset, a new survey has found that “it is the young – those under 30 – who report experiencing far more age discrimination than those over 50 … In the survey, compiled during 2013, the 50+ set reported experiencing several percentage points less discrimination in the workplace when measured with comparable statistics dating back to 1997 at the end of the last recession.”

The article makes a point of underscoring the “rhetoric,” “belief” and “commonly-held perception that people over 40 suffer from age discrimination in the workplace in Finland,” as if beliefs and perceptions are somehow more significant than the reality of age discrimination, or are at odds with the reality.  For example”: “If a job-seeker is over 40 years old [40!], many believe that they will not get hired. In Finland there also seems to be a belief that the older a person is, the greater likelihood there is that they will be among the first fired. …”

Oh how naive – believing something so silly as the existence of discrimination against older employees — preposterous!

Despite the fact that age discrimination is described as “rhetoric,” “belief” and “commonly-held perceptions,” the article then goes on to note that “Research indicates that 1 in 10 employees have charged employers with age discrimination and are taking matters forward to the legal level.”

10% of employees made charges of age discrimination?  That’s quite a lot – even by US standards, and certainly enough in our book to constitute more than a “belief” or simple “perception!”

Strange article.