Speaking at the Australian Industry Group Personnel and Industrial Relations Conference today, Age Discrimination Commissioner, Susan Ryan said that older people will continue to be pushed out of work at the expense of business productivity unless we start to reassess the way we think about the ideal employee.

“A recent Deloittes report on the looming national skills shortage asked the question that should be on the lips of most businesses: Where is your next employee coming from?” Commissioner Ryan said. “Their answer was clear – your next employee is retired or about to retire.”

Commissioner Ryan said that the ratio of working age Australians to those aged 65 and over was projected to fall from the 2010 figures of 5:1 to 2.9:1 in 2050.

“Older age has become a negative in the employment sector in this country and it clearly doesn’t have to be,” Commissioner Ryan said. “Unless we change our employment practices and our basic thinking about suitable employees, we will create a class of older people who are very often willing and perfectly capable of working, but have been forced into becoming a burden on the public purse – ironically, when we are suffering an ever worsening nationwide skills shortage.”

Commissioner Ryan said age discrimination was one of the main causes of this situation and it was not just restricted to the attitudes of employers, but was also written into the legislation and policies that govern employment and workplace practices.

“Barriers such as age caps on workers compensation and age bars in income insurance, not only make it less attractive for workers to keep working, but act as a disincentive for employers when it comes to recruiting or keeping older workers in employment,” Commissioner Ryan said.

“This is a particularly self-defeating situation when we know that there is little scope to increase the already high workplace participation of people aged 15 to 54 while people aged 55 to 70 are a massive untapped source of productive capacity.”

Ms Ryan said it was a widely held view, though a wrong one, that older workers can’t learn new skills, particularly in the technology area.

“There is no scientific evidence that older workers are more difficult to train or find it harder to learn.” Ms Ryan said. “However, there is research that shows older workers have the lowest turnover, the fewest sick days and the best safety record in employment.”

Commissioner Ryan said she believed that by working together, employers, human resource managers, recruiters, government and advocates could go a long way and quite quickly to changing these negative practices.

Source: Australian Human Rights Commission

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