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Under the Job Application Fairness Act, Colorado companies are prohibited from requesting age-identifying information, such as a job applicant’s date of birth or dates of school attendance or graduation, in an initial application. Employers also must tell applicants they can redact dates and ages on their résumé or application.
“There’s no reason for people to know what year you graduated from college. It’s something I’ve been recommending for people of all ages,” said Saïd Eastman, chief executive officer of JobsInTheUS.com, an online job site.
The law says an employer can verify an applicant’s date of birth after extending an offer for hire in order to verify that legal or safety requirements are met. For example, the employer could confirm that a candidate for a bartending or wait-staff position is 18 years old and therefore legally allowed to serve alcohol.
The new law, which covers all employers in Colorado, follows similar laws in Delaware, Connecticut, California, Minnesota and Pennsylvania. Eastman said he expects more states to follow suit.
“If you have too much experience, you’re seen as too old and too expensive and too likely to cost more in healthcare coverage. It’s not fair, but that’s often how people perceive it,” Eastman said. “People also look at experienced or senior employees as only having a couple years before they retire, so why invest in them?”
AARP found that 14% of U.S. adults reported in 2023 that they had not been hired for a job because of their age. Age discrimination against people 50 and older cost the economy $850 billion in 2018 as a result of lost jobs or missed promotions and opportunities, the group found.
Colorado’s new law will help make the initial screening process more anonymous and hopefully more fair, said Janine Vanderburg, co-founder and senior strategist at Changing the Narrative, an initiative that works to raise awareness about ageism through workshops educating the public about ageist language, beliefs and practices.
“It allows older people to get through the door and not get screened out immediately. It will be very beneficial to both older and younger workers,” Vanderburg said. “It’s beneficial to employers, too. It protects against biases. It protects against age-discrimination lawsuits. There’s also a talent shortage, and this will help increase the pool of applicants who might otherwise get sifted out because of their age.”
