Dan Petrie: Australia’s economic future needs retrained older workers

If we are to bolster the economy, we need to become masters of retraining and unlocking our older workforce, writes Dan Petrie.

You don’t need to be federal treasurer to realise that workforce of tomorrow has to embrace and retrain the (ageing) workforce of yesterday.

As Rose from the Golden Girls says, “the older you get, the better you get, unless you’re a banana”.

But someone needs to tell that to employers, as older Australians are too often overlooked for jobs or considered a workplace burden.

Australian governments have been besotted with the idea of bringing into the workforce a wave of skills aimed at bolstering the economy of tomorrow.

But if we are to achieve this we need to become masters of retraining and unlocking our over 40s workforce.

Last Tuesday, Federal Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg splashed the cash towards the retraining sector with $2.7 billion allocated to boost the numbers starting apprenticeships.

All positive, but there are two problems here, one completion rates for apprenticeships and traineeships are just over 50 per cent and the ability to financially survive during this period of training is challenging, especially if you have a mortgage.

Queensland, we need to flip the script and embrace new thinking and be a leader in retraining older workers.

Older people are staying longer in the workforce than ever before, with 4.7 per cent of Australia’s workforce now aged 65 years or older, according to 2019 data.

Yet the idea of attracting people to traineeships is a conversation largely aimed at the youth of this state.

However, if Australia were to pilot successful models observed in Europe of a highly personalised approach where the government pays a large percentage of an older worker’s pre-existing salary or average remuneration in the preceding five years it could improve the state’s collective skill set.

For regular readers of this column, the Nordic countries do provide some inspiration in different thinking on such matters.

Sweden maintains a network of ‘Job Security Councils’ that are jointly run by industry and unions and place a strong emphasis on tailoring training to individual circumstance.

Switzerland (yes, I know it is not Nordic) pays laid off workers a salary that is commensurate with previous employment and a case worker that checks in progress on monthly training as well as networking events.

Older workers are too often overlooked when it comes to retraining. Picture: iStock

Australian Governments of all persuasions have wrestled with improving apprenticeship and traineeship outcomes, heavily subsidising courses where the attractiveness of such roles for younger workers faces stiff competition from tech savvy hipsters and gamers.

Despite the dollars, the numbers of people wanting to get on the tools is little changed over the last decade.

In fact, the numbers of people completing courses has fallen across most regions.

This also comes at a time where the number skilled vacancies in Queensland have risen sharply where vacancies data reveals job openings for chefs are up 13.5 per cent, electricians 14.2 per cent and motor mechanics 21.2 per cent for categories with 500 or more job openings.

For the mining industry, whose pool of available talent has dwindled due to international restrictions, this means potentially launching recruitment drives at airports where fly-in fly-out (FIFO) workers congregate.

Technology and computer science has become a critical area of need with the like consulting giant, Accenture now looking to retrain army veterans in technology.

Hospitality venues face similar challenges with the daunting prospect of being able to meet a surge in domestic tourism demand.

The federal budget of Tuesday was a modern budget with almost everyone getting a prize with a big emphasis on skills and training.

However, the glaring problem is that the incentives for training workers target a younger demographic while many older workers hang on for dear life in roles that could be automated within the coming decade.

Apprenticeships and traineeships offer the chance for lifelong learning and what better way to continue that journey by checking in with the over 40s.

Old dogs most certainly can learn new tricks and from an economic perspective it is well worth it.

Dan Petrie is the Chief Information Officer of data analytics firm, Grafa and a former Economic Data Editor at Bloomberg LP who also goes by the name of Data Dan – do you have a data question? Email [e-mail]