What is the age bracket for jobs in the UN?

Posted on by Rottmair Sebastian · 13 Comments

I got the following question the other day: “Do you know the age bracket for jobs in the UN?”

Here is my take: To my knowledge (and keep in mind I’m not the UN, nor do I speak on their behalf) the following applies:

  • You have to be an adult to work for the UN (the UN does not condone child labor)
  • Certain programmes like the Junior Professional Officer (JPO) Programme, or the UN’s Young Professional Programme (YPP) have age restrictions.
  • The retirement age for anyone hired on a staff contract today is currently 62 years. Which means that if you want to work beyond that age, you will need to get a waiver.

Other than these boundaries, to my knowledge, there are no age restrictions. Are you working in an HR capacity in a UN organisation? Do you know of any further age related regulations? Please let us know in the FORUM – thanks!

13 responses

  1. There are no age restrictions per se (beyond Sebastion’s three comments). There are however, selection criteria in terms of experience and educational qullifications that, given it takes time to obtain both, will have an impact on the age of qualified candidates.

  4. I believe that it all depends on the unit/department that you’re applying to.

    Sometimes, bosses like younger people who will not challenge their ideas, sometimes bosses like older folks who bring experience. In one case, when I was working with the UN and had to select interns, I was told to not consider interns who were over the age of 28, since they would have ‘too much’ experience.

  5. What is a fixed term international contract that’s called L2 ( Associate Industrial Expert) in UNIDO system? Is it an equivalent for P2?I don’t seem to find this category anywhere!
    Thank you for your response,

  7. La limite d’âge à été repoussée à 65 ans pour ceux recrutés après 2014.

  9. As of 1 January 2018, the retirement age for all people already working in the UN was supposed to be raised from 62 to 65, as per a UN General Assembly resolution. However some agencies have already decided to delay beyond this deadline, forcing people to retire at age 62. Can you publish a list of those agencies that will implement on time, and those that will go past the deadline?

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