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 UNIT 6   Recording 8

A:       I’m going to speak against the statement: ‘Employers should give preference to younger applicants when hiring.' The first point I’d like to make is that selecting a person for a job on the basis of their age is unfair. It’s as bad as choosing someone because of their gender or race or religion. People should be selected for a job because of their abilities and suitability and not because they are a certain age. For example, if a sixty-year-old person is able, physically and mentally, to do a job, they should be judged on the same basis as a thirty-year-old.

B:       I would like to speak in favour of the statement. I would like to start off by saying that I fully support equal opportunities for people applying for a job. However, I would like to pick up on the point made by Sarah when she said ‘if a person is able, physically and mentally, to do a job’. I think we need to be realistic here. As people age, this can affect their energy, their ability to react quickly and their memory. In some jobs it may be vital for people to have high levels of energy, for example in a creative industry such as advertising. Or people need to be able to react quickly, for instance if they’re a lorry driver, or be able to concentrate for long periods of time if they’re an airline pilot. It is simply a fact of life that, as we age, our mental and physical capabilities deteriorate and that, for certain jobs, younger people are better.