Age ‘discrimination’ runs both ways. Many companies operate policies of age discrimination against older workers. Older employees are often likely to have more out of date skills. According to a survey of businesses, the reasons for not hiring older workers are their lack of flexibility and unwillingness to learn new techniques, lack of foreign languages, little knowledge of technology and a dislike of change [1] . Those who are nearing the end of their career and are just as likely to be unable to find a news job because of these problems and are therefore likely to find themselves forced into early retirement.  When this happens these people will no longer be counted among the statistics for unemployment so much older unemployment is hidden. If a ‘lack’ of experience is a good reason for the government to provide a job then having the ‘wrong’ experience should be just as good a reason. Focusing just on youth would be wrong.  [1] Daskalova, Nadezhda, ‘Company attitudes towards employing older workers’, EWCO, 10 July 2009,