Is this (seeming ageism) legal in Switzerland?
<p>I am a freelance software developer. I have just received an email describing a possible position in Switzerland. Among the requirements, all others for technical knowledge &amp; skills, was this:</p>
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<p>Graduated in the last 5 – 10 years</p>
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<p>Is this legal in Switzerland? My first thought was ageism, but then I realized that they (cleverly?) do not explicitly say that.</p>
<p>Perhaps they think that anyone who graduated before 10 years ago might not have been taught the necessary skills? (and, they don't care if they have acquired them in industry, rather than university)</p>
<p>It certainly smacks of ageism to me, but I wonder if someone could actually succeed with a discrimination case in a Swiss court.</p>

<p>It's almost certainly legal and is commonplace in much of the world- especially in technology-related fields.</p>
<p>There is a legitimate reason for a recent degree in a changing field such as Computer Science. A degree from 2019 would have covered very different topics than one from 2009, which would be unrecognisable from one from 1999.</p>
<p>While I agree it is more likely that valid applicants will be young (under 35), there is no reason to believe this was the intention. For this to be illegal it would have to be done with the puropse of deterring older applicants.</p>
<p>If you're still convinced it's illegal and want to spend time and money on this, lawyer up.</p>
<p>If you're looking for advice on how to be considered anyway, I know for a fact this has been asked on Workplace before.</p>

<p>This kind of indirect age discrimination is probably legal in Switzerland since even direct age discrimination is effectively* legal.</p>
<p>In 2017, the Federal Council (Swiss executive) proposed rejecting <a href="https://www.parlament.ch/fr/ratsbetrieb/suche-curia-vista/geschaeft?AffairId=20164060" rel="nofollow noreferrer">a motion to prohibit age discrimination in job offers</a>, which the National Council (Swiss legislative lower house) later let expire. Noting that only about 10% of online Swiss job postings explicitly or implicitly discriminated by age, they reasoned that (my translation):</p>
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<p>Prohibiting the inclusion of an age limit in job offers would place barriers on entrepreneurial liberty which would be disproportional with respect to the practical situation.</p>
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<p>*Note: The constitution does in fact prohibit age discrimination, but at least in the employment field, there's basically no implementing legislation or sanctions which renders the clause dead in practice. For specifics, I can see a deep and time-consuming research rabbit-hole here, which I'm going to avoid for now.</p>

<h2>People can attend University at (almost) any age</h2>
<p>While most people complete their first degree in their early twenties, some do not get higher education until much later in life. The oldest graduate with a first time bachelor’s degree that I am aware of was in her early 90s.</p>

switzerland age