Age still a barrier to older workers

Older workers unable to find permanent work are calling for wage subsidies for the grey brigade to be abolished, claiming they devalue their experience.

Consultant Phil Rutherford says many organisations can’t accept the idea that older people can share years of experience. Picture: Kym Smith

Older workers unable to find permanent work are calling for wage subsidies for the grey brigade to be abolished, claiming they devalue their experience.

Melbourne-based Richard Evans, 62, a former Liberal Party MP and executive director of the Australian Retailers Association, has found it difficult to secure full-time work during the past year.

Evans says he has been overlooked by dozens of employers, who have hired younger workers with less experience than his years in retail and business management could provide.

Evans wants federal and state governments to develop policies to encourage companies to employ older workers, enabling organ­isations and younger employees to learn from their experience. He wants to see an industry body established to advocate for older employees: a mature-age workers association.

And while federal subsidies to employ older workers may be considered positive, Evans says they devalue experience.

“Aboriginal people respect their elders, Japanese people, the Greeks and Italians do, but if you look at Australia they don’t respect their elders,” Evans says.

Australian Human Rights Commission research has found a 5 per cent increase in workforce participation by people aged over 55 would add $48 billion to the economy. But increasing participation is difficult when older workers struggle to get jobs.

Older women are often content to work part time, and Evans says there are men aged in their mid-50s who do not have enough superannuation, have gone through a divorce or are asset poor, and they need to work to ensure they will be comfortable post-retirement.

He says older workers are more reliable, less likely to take sick leave and likelier to stay in the role longer compared with many younger workers who change jobs after a year or two without building experience.

Evans has applied for more than 50 jobs and been interviewed for about 20 per cent of those. Out of frustration he is opening a consultancy business.

International consultant Phil Rutherford, 65, has spent more than a decade looking for a permanent job. He spends more time consulting on vocational and further training industries overseas than in Australia.

He was over-qualified for one position he sought but was passed over, and the company asked him to mentor the younger candidate instead. Rutherford was also listed with a prominent jobs agency for more than a decade but lost hope because it was not advocating for him. “It was because of my age,” Rutherford says. “I had a number of experiences like that.” Rutherford stopped putting his age on applications and was regularly short-listed for interviews, but when he sat before panels he noticed members would almost immediately put down their pens and cross their arms.

The education consultant has spent decades developing vocational systems in different countries, and is working on an International Baccalaureate program that enables students to be tertiary-studies or job ready.

He says many organisations are unwilling to entertain the idea that older people can share years of experience.

“I don’t know that younger people see older people as a threat, but they don’t see them as someone they can gain anything from,” he says. “It’s not that younger workers come cheaper because they’re not. I think it’s a lack of understanding of managers that there’s a wider capability available to them and they don’t have to wander through the future on their own, they are people they can leverage off.”

Federal Age and Disability Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan says age discrimination in the workforce is increasing as the population ages, despite legislation and penalties that aim to prevent it.

“It is very hard to prove unless the employer is foolish enough to say: ‘We want someone younger,’ ” Ryan says.

“If that’s said and there’s a witness they’re likely to have violated the act, but most decisions don’t come down to that, most will say they’re looking for someone to fit into their team. If they believe it has happened they could still make a complaint to the Human Rights Commission, it’s free and they can get advice.”

Ryan does not think tougher policies would help, and supports employer subsidies, disagreeing they devalue older workers.

Since the Restart Wage Subsidy was introduced last year, offering employers $10,000 to take on a worker aged over 50 who has been unemployed and on the Newstart allowance for more than six months, Ryan says close to 700 people have gained jobs.

“It isn’t huge but it’s positive,” she says. “Where it’s having a positive effect is small business. I don’t think the big employers and private sectors are using it as much.”

Ryan would like to see the subsidy used to fund training, an area many older workers do not prioritise. She says many employment roadblocks also occur when recruitment companies fill a brief for a company requesting a “young team”, discarding applications from older workers. She has been speaking to companies about reconsidering older workers but says they do not even have to give candidates a reason they are not put forward.

Against the trend, this year OneShift founder Gen George recognised the growing demand from older workers and bought mature-age jobs board Adage. The company acts as a bridge for workers aged over 45 to find work.

“What we find is the smarter businesses are acknowledging the population is ageing,” George says. “There’s good and bad employees and there are people that have agendas against older people, and that’s their problem.”

George says OneShift’s database has grown from having fewer than 5 per cent of its client base aged over 45 to 13.1 per cent now.

“The stats show that people who are 45 plus are more likely to stay in a role compared to gen­eration Y, who are likely to change,” she says. “We get that feedback and they’re going to stay there five times longer than generation Y workers.”