In the modern workplace, age 50 is considered old

Date: March 2, 2016

Jenny Brice

Ageism at work is rife, but fear is stopping people from talking about it.

In the movie Intern, Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) takes on a job as a a senior intern at an online fashion site.

In the movie Intern, Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) takes on a job as a a senior intern at an online fashion site. Photo: Supplied

Breaking through the glass ceiling is relatively easy. I did it almost 20 years ago. But no one told me about the glass trapdoor – that was the shock nothing in my stellar career had prepared me for. At the age of 50 I left a job for family reasons for a short while, but I faced hurdles when I tried to return to the workforce. My corporate stiletto had slipped straight through the glass trapdoor. I simply hadn’t realised that in the modern workplace, 50 is considered old.

This is not a unique story. The tentacles of age discrimination reach into every facet of Australian society and nothing we are now doing is working. The government bribing companies to take on older workers by paying $10,000 an older employee has been a dismal failure. Fewer than 3000 people are involved in a scheme that hoped to attract 32,000.

The government’s intergenerational report makes it clear that older workers must work longer. It is a financial imperative, as it will boost productivity. An extra 3 per cent participation rate in workers over 55 is estimated to account for a $33 billion boost to Australia’s gross domestic product.

As an added incentive for older people to continue to work the pension age will go up. From July 2025, the qualifying age to receive the age pension will continue to increase from 67 years, by six months every two years, until it reaches 70 years in July 2035.

The fatal flaw in this grand strategy is that employers are reducing older workers from their workforce at alarming rates. Once older workers have left a job, it becomes difficult to re-enter the workforce. If they do, they are often underemployed and unable to maintain their previous standard of living.

To add to the problem the definition of an older worker is getting younger. It appears to be going down in five-yearly increments. Forget 65 think 50 or even 45. For redundancy purposes if an employee is 45, they are defined as an older worker. They receive small extra payments for the privilege. They then enter the world of unemployment where it takes an average of 72 weeks for them to re-enter the workforce in some capacity.

Workers are becoming so fearful of being classified as old they are spending big dollars on keeping themselves looking younger. Research shows that one of the primary reasons women go under the surgeon’s knife is to ensure employability in the workforce. As an executive coach and facilitator, working in corporate Australia, I am aware of the level of fear. That fear is not only confined to women it just starts earlier for them.

The government has acknowledged employment discrimination may derail its plans. An inquiry, to be released in July, has been established to identify what is required to keep older people in the workforce. Let’s hope it packs a punch because it will have to be taken seriously if the government wants to deliver on any number of economic outcomes.

I agree with Susan Ryan, the Age Discrimination Commissioner, that age discrimination is a social and economic issue affecting a growing cohort of men and women. It caught government by surprise.

It is important to dispel the myths: Australians over the age of 50 do want to work. The issue is they often cannot get a job after their employment has been terminated. The new jobs they are offered are often casual or jobs that no one else wants.

Financial hardship is becoming an inevitable reality for this group of older Australians and it’s affecting their health. Worryingly men, who have lost employment between 45 and 65, are one of the largest growing groups of people with mental health issues.

Staggeringly, there are more people over 50 on work-for-the-dole schemes than unemployed people below 22. Even more shocking there are now 210,000 Australians over the age of 50 who are living off unemployment benefits. Serious intervention is required if for no other reason than self-interest. No amount of bribery, no amount of Botox, no amount of surgery is going to mask this problem any time soon.

It’s easy for the the government to get the data, change pensions policies and set up an inquiry. It is much more difficult to change a culture. This is challenging in Australia, as ageism in the workforce is as rampant as it is silent. Silence can no longer be accepted.

It’s time for governments, employers and Australians to act. Unlike the suffragettes, or powerful images of Ruby Bridges, the first black child to attend an all-white school in America, there has been no similar campaign or strong movement for the greying masses for anything to change.

Given the boost to profits, productivity and reduction on the burden of the aged pension, it is hard to understand why corporate Australia, state and federal governments and the Productivity Commission are not rallying in the streets to make this happen.

Jenny Brice is an executive coach and a former HR director for several large Australian companies.

Retirement living standards aren’t so bad. You don’t need much super

The closer we get to taxing superannuation properly the more we are going to hear about how important it is and how much we are going need to live on in retirement. Don’t believe it. It’s almost all propaganda, almost all paid for with money taken out of our superannuation accounts.

The latest scary figure, produced by the Association of Superannuation Funds, is $58,784 per year. That’s how much it says a 65-year-old couple needs to live on in order to enjoy a “comfortable” retirement.

At the risk of stating the obvious, after tax and rent or mortgage payments most working Australians couldn’t afford such comfort.

It’s absurdly high. The fine print shows such a couple would spend $40 a week on alcohol, $80 a week on dining out, almost $200 a week on food and groceries, $136 a month on the phone and internet, $4000 a year on holidays within Australia, and $14,000 every five years on a holiday abroad.

The Association of Superannuation Funds estimate of how much a 65-year-old couple need to live is absurdly high. Illustration: John Shakespeare Photo: Illo:Shakespeare

Plus this: the best part of $250 a month on new clothes and shoes, $80 a month on hairdressing, $54 a month on pest control and/or an alarm service, and $350 a month on private health insurance.

At the risk of stating the obvious, after tax and rent or mortgage payments most working Australians couldn’t afford such comfort. How did such a figure come to be defined as the gold standard used to justify steady increases in compulsory super contributions and to attack plans to tax them properly?

Part of the answer is that the super industry really doesn’t care about the living standards of Australians who are working or about the extra tax they have to pay because super funds aren’t. Its chief concern is the $2 trillion in funds it has amassed to date, and the tens of billions of dollars of it that stick to its fingers each year in management fees.

Its so-called “comfortable” retirement standard was originally called “comfortably affluent but sustainable”. That’s right, the word “affluent” got edited out along the way. The University of NSW team that built it never intended it to apply to the bulk of retirees. For them they created a second standard, “one which affords full opportunity to participate in contemporary Australian society and the basic options it offers”. They labelled it “modest but adequate“.

The word “adequate” has also disappeared along the way, leaving the false impression that what’s affluent is normal and that anything else isn’t adequate.

It’s needlessly scaring us. A new survey by State Street Global Advisors finds that before retirement most Australians believe they won’t have enough to live on, but that after retirement most are happy: two-thirds say their standard of living is no worse and a significant minority say it is better.

The truth is that living costs plummet on retirement. Most retirees no longer face a mortgage, a saving of 30 per cent. Most no longer pay tax, no longer have children living at home, and no longer habitually save up to 10 per cent of each pay packet. They also no longer incur the substantial costs of heading out of home and going to work: petrol, parking, work clothes and the temptations of the office cafeteria. And they have more time to shop and cook, meaning they get better value and pay less for food. So comfortable are retirees spending far less than the industry says they need to, that most actually save.

In his earlier incarnation as social services minister Scott Morrison revealed that in their first five years in retirement 57 per cent of pensioners either build up their savings or keep them steady.

In their last five years 67 per cent do so. A Productivity Commission survey released last week finds that only 5 per cent of retirees stop saving when their income drops on retirement. But outrageously inflating the cost of living for retirees is only the first of the industry’s tricks. The second is to imply that all of it has to come from super.

The astonishing truth, outlined by Morrison in a speech as Treasurer last month, is that super accounts for only 15 per cent of the assets of Australians over the age of 65, and only 20 per cent of their income.

As the Grattan Institute put it in a recent report: superannuation is the least important part of the retirement incomes system. Retirees have much more invested in real estate than super, and “at all ages, incomes and wealth” more invested in other financial instruments than in superannuation.

“It is unreasonable to expect superannuation savings alone to fund a comfortable living standard in retirement,” the institute says. It follows that it is unreasonable to believe that the super system needs to grow or stay as it is in order to provide decent retirements. Labor is blind to evidence when it comes to superannuation.

In thrall to the legend of Paul Keating and the myths propagated by the industry he helped create, it wants to lift compulsory contributions from 9.5 per cent of salaries to 12 per cent. Morrison is more clear-eyed.

Some retirees are genuinely poor. They are the ones paying rent. The Productivity Commission says they typically have to dole out $240 a week and are vulnerable to eviction. Shamefully, when Kevin Rudd lifted the age pension in 2009 he all but ignored the finding from his pension review that rent assistance was far too low. It remains unindexed at $120 a fortnight.

There may well be other Australians for whom retirement is uncomfortable, notwithstanding the pension of $20,498 for singles and $30,903 for couples. But for most it’s OK, no worse than working. There’s no need to hand a $2 trillion industry tax concessions in order to help them.

Peter Martin is economics editor of The Age.

Source: Theage.com.au

Government jobs program falls 95 per cent short of target

A federal government program designed to get older Australians back into work has been branded a dismal failure, with only 1700 people joining the scheme meant to benefit 32,000.

Department of Employment documents reveal just 1735 people took advantage of the Restart scheme in its first year of operation – about 5 per cent of the government’s target.

Announced with much fanfare in the 2014 budget, the program provides a wage subsidy of up to $10,000 to employers who give jobs to people aged over 50 who have been unemployed for more than six months.

Labor said the program is clearly missing the mark. Advertisement “It’s the government’s program that needs a restart as it’s proving to be a dismal failure,” opposition spokesman Brendan O’Connor said. “No amount of rhetorical flourish from the Prime Minister can hide the real reason the program doesn’t work – there simply are not the jobs available.”

But Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said the government remains “firmly committed” to the program, which is part of a $1 billion investment to establish a single wage subsidy pool.

She said the program has now helped a total of 2500 mature-age workers, including those helped since July 1. “Restart is a demand-driven programme and the government budgeted for a maximum uptake of 32,000,” she said.

Nonetheless, Ms Cash has announced changes designed to improve uptake. The subsidy will now be paid over 12 months rather than 24 and other measures have been taken to reduce complexity and red tape.

Older workers face significant barriers to entering the workforce. On average, they spend 61 weeks on the unemployment queue, compared to 37 weeks for all other people.

“That is why Restart was developed, to give an added incentive to employers to hire a mature-age worker,” Ms Cash said. Both major parties have long struggled to encourage employers to hire mature-age Australians. Indeed, just 230 employers took advantage of a $1000 annual subsidy under the two-year life of the Rudd/Gillard government’s Experience+Jobs Bonus scheme, which was also designed to get over 50s into work. It was meant to benefit up to 10,000 employers.

Source: The Age/Adam Gartrell

7 Things I Learned About Friendship From Working In An Intergenerational Office

I am 65, and for the past four years, HuffPost’s office in Los Angeles has been my work home. I am the oldest breathing soul in the building, something that I’ve grown accustomed to. I happen to like my officemates a great deal — and believe that that affection is reciprocated. But without a doubt, being the oldest employee comes with some distinctions — and life lessons. Here are a few:

1. You don’t have to be in the same life stage in order to be friends with someone.
Right now, we are celebrating two recent engagements in my office. Marriage proposal stories are such fun to hear, especially if you are a boomer who came of marriage age at a time when getting down on one knee or asking the woman’s parents for permission would likely have revoked your commune membership. Since my own husband asked me centuries ago to marry him with something like “Wanna?” I appreciate the thoughtful care that went into Ashley and Meredith’s proposals.

I am also genuinely interested in hearing the details of the weddings-in-the-works. I find myself cautioning them to not lose sight of the marriage in planning for the wedding.

In my current life stage, I’m preparing for our oldest child to leave for college in a year. My officemates have a wealth of information about the college application process and the college experience itself since it wasn’t that long ago for many of them. When my daughter applies next year, she will have benefited from the collective wisdom of these fairly recent graduates.

Our milestone events may not be the same, but the enthusiasm we have for one another’s important occasions is real. They came to my son’s Bar Mitzvah ceremony and I almost made it to Anna’s first-house party.

2. I don’t have to go to karaoke night to be part of the group.
Every office has a culture. Ours has a hipster vibe, where fun is encouraged. We work hard and we play hard. We have game nights and cocktail-tasting events. We have drink carts on Thursdays, share free bagels on Fridays and have corporate days where we volunteer. I pick and choose my spots but am always included by all. I like that. It’s the way it should be — even if I don’t show up most of the time.

When you think about it, we’ve always compartmentalized our friends. I have Mom friends and friends from my single days. I have friends from within the world of journalism and friends who are neighbors. I also have movie friends and hiking friends and trying-new-restaurant friends. I think it’s fine for boomers to have millennial friends.

3. If I’m their mentor, they are my educators.
I’m maternal by nature, which means I like to share the experience of my years — mostly about life, but sometimes about work too. And of course old dogs can be taught new tricks. Which makes us perfect. I like to think that I push the bar up journalistically here in the office. With my colleagues’ help I’ve become one of those 65-year-olds who knows more about the Internet than all her same-age friends.

4. We share indignation.
Except for my insistence that real music died about 10 years after Woodstock, our views are largely aligned. One thing I love is their support whenever I go off on age discrimination. Think about it: Many millennials can’t get their foot in the corporate door and many boomers like me have no plans to go anywhere. That alone could trigger animosities among lessers.

But in our case, they share my indignation over the small stuff that makes me explode. For example, companies that recruit for “digital natives.” I love that expression — digital natives — except when I see it in a job posting. Digital native means someone who was born with a cellphone in his or her hand. It’s been showing up lately in job postings when the company wants to hire someone young and has been cautioned against by H&R offices worried about age discrimination suits. I’m not sure how long the term “digital native” will be around, but I do know that my young friends agree with me that older people have a place in the workforce — and that we in fact enrich the office.

5. I am a walking history book, and they are the future chapters.
As digital natives — well, they are — they often encourage me to talk about the good old days of print journalism. They were shocked when I told them how 35 years ago, a county judge in New Jersey booted me out of the courtroom where I was reporting on a trial because I was wearing a pant suit. Ladies, he told me, wore skirts to his court and to do otherwise was showing disrespect. The next day, every female reporter I knew came to court with me — all of us wearing pant suits.

My young colleagues were equally stunned when I explained how I was told that I couldn’t be promoted because to do so would take a paycheck out of the hands of a “family breadwinner,” and how more than once I was asked why I didn’t just get married and have kids.

From my colleagues, I have learned how the new dress-for-success look is often my jeans and boots. They are my go-to resource for all things current. I now know where to shop, eat, drink and vacation. Heck, I even got Netflix to be able to join in the conversation.

6. Cash v. Card.
This continues to be our big divide. What is it with millennials and their aversion to cash? They all use plastic all the time for everything, including buying a soda off the food truck. I carry cash. It comes in handy for handing over to a mugger, which is precisely why I suspect they don’t carry any.

7. Technology made our lives easier.
At the risk of sounding trite, there really is an app for everything. And I thank my young colleagues for sorting through the clutter and letting me know which ones will really make my life easier. I knew about Uber, but not UberEats — which delivers a fresh lunch to my office in under five minutes. (H/T Joe Satran, HuffPost Taste writer.) From Healthy Living writer Anna Almendrala I learned about Withings, an interactive app that tracks your exercise, food, steps, weight, etc. She also was the first one to show me MyFitnessPal. And I’m a total fan of Venmo, a peer-to-peer money transfer system.

Probably more to the heart of things, they taught me that technology isn’t the big scary beast that so many of my own-age peers feel the need to dismiss disparagingly

Source: Huffingtonpost.com

Part-pension eligibility may be tightened in wake of outcry over cuts

Scott Morrison to ‘consider seriously’ the alternative proposal following complaints about the plan to cut pension increases laid out in the budget

The Abbott government is considering limiting wealthy retirees’ eligibility to the part-pension as an alternative to its controversial budget policy to cut the rate of pension increases, the social services minister, Scott Morrison, has said.

Morrison signalled the potential backdown after the government faced nearly a year of internal and external criticism for its decision to confine pension increases to the consumer price index from 2017.

Groups including the Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss) have repeatedly argued the original budget measure would erode the value of the pension relative to wages over time, and the government should instead consider tightening eligibility rules for the part-pension.

Morrison said he would “consider seriously” the Acoss proposal because the government was “wedded to the goal” of a sustainable and adequate pension system rather than any particular measure.

The chief executive of Acoss, Cassandra Goldie, said the plan to target the pension to those who most needed it would involve “reducing the current threshold that allows couples with as much as $1.1m in assets on top of the family home to qualify for a part-pension”.

Goldie spelled out her alternative proposals in a statement issued on Wednesday. Acoss proposed reducing the cut-out point for the part-pension for couples to $794,250 in assets besides the family home, saving the government an estimated $1.45bn in 2016-17.

Morrison signalled his openness to the plan. He said he had asked the sector and crossbench senators “if they have better proposals to make our pension sustainable”, and he would “keep on the table measures until there are new measures to put on the table”.

“What I am saying particularly in relation to the pension is that the proposal put forward by Acoss today is something we will consider seriously. I am interested in getting an outcome and a solution here that delivers a sustainable pension for all Australians, not just those today but those in the future,” Morrison said in Adelaide.

“Acoss, by putting this forward today, understands that that is something we have to address. We can’t just stick our head into the sand which is what the Labor party appear to be doing.”

Morrison said the government was aiming to “get to a point where we can be in agreement about the measures that will deliver a sustainable pension”.

“That is what I am wedded to,” he said. “The government is wedded to the goal and our goal is to have a sustainable and adequate pension into the future and it is clear that if you keep just going down the path that Labor is suggesting which is to stick your head in the sand and do nothing then you will run the pension off the edge of a cliff.”

The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, refused to say whether he would support the proposed changes to the pension asset test.

“I’m not going to give this government a blank cheque,” Shorten told the ABC on Thursday.

“What I would support is well thought out, detailed policies, which they haven’t put to us. The discussion in this morning’s newspapers is nothing more than Scott Morrison having a thought bubble.”

Shorten said there was still no concrete proposal on the table, but the government appeared to finally be admitting problems with its pre-existing policy to cut pension indexation.

“It is correct that Labor has opposed the government cutting the rate of pension indexation and today for the first time it appears that after nearly a year of Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey saying government policies were unfairly being targeted by Labor through a scare campaign, for the first time we see chinks in the armour of the government’s propaganda campaign where they have tried to pretend that somehow what they were doing was good for pensioners.”

At a later media conference, Shorten left the door open to supporting changes to part-pension eligibility, which would spare the government the need to seek crossbench support in the Senate

“Labor has always been up for making sure that we have the fairest possible system, but pensioners of Australia should not have to consider the Abbott government’s budget measures with a gun to their head which is cuts to $80 a week in pension indexation,” he said.

Labor’s families spokeswoman, Jenny Macklin, said the government “should put carefully considered proposals to the public and then we can all look at them in a proper way”.

The Greens senator Rachel Siewert said her party supported calls for “a broad review of retirement income instead of fragmentary changes to the pension.”

“This review should include looking as the assets test and changes to super concessions,” she said.

The pension indexation changes were announced in the government’s first budget, delivered in May last year, but faced a Senate obstacle.

Morrison has been signalling for some time that he was looking at the pension issue. He recently proposed reviewing the adequacy of the pension every three years in an attempt to win crossbench support for the indexation changes.

Morrison said community and seniors’ groups and the independent senator Nick Xenophon had offered constructive alternatives in what he described as a “coalition of ideas”.

He said the government would “work through these measures in careful detail and seek to cost them fully”.

Source: The Guardian

Here’s the good news about the ageing population

October 12, 2014

Here’s a radical thought: what if Australia’s ageing population was a boon not a burden? What if greying baby boomers spelt opportunity not crisis? The media, politicians, and Treasury have depicted the ageing population as a demographic time bomb. Too many old people and a shrinking workforce will be the country’s ruination. As the politically powerful and needy old squeeze the young dry, the result will be endless government deficits, higher taxes and lower productivity. It’s enough to make retiring baby boomers feel guilty for hoping to reach 80.

But increasingly other voices are pressing a positive view. Instead of fearing longer lives, we should be celebrating the longevity achievement as one of the greatest of modern times. Instead of regarding ageing as a period of decline, decay and dependency, we should positively embrace the ageing society. The Blueprint for an Ageing Australia is a recent report to argue this line. It says we debate the ‘challenges’ of an ageing population “as though ageing was something to be feared and shunned. We talk about the costs and burdens of ageing. This perception is misguided.” Instead, it says, we could “choose to see longer lives as a social and economic good.”

I’ve taken a while to be persuaded to this positive point of view. The growing costs of aged care, superannuation tax concessions, pensions, and especially health care are realand need to be addressed. The cost of treating dementia alone is estimated to be $83 billion by 2060. The growing inequality among older Australians is another cause of concern.

When the number of people over 65 rises from 3.1 million to 5.7 million over the 20 years to 2031 it will represent a significant shift. Australians over 65 will make up 18.7 per cent of our population compared to around 14 per cent today. The ageing population is a force that will re-shape Australia. And the wealthier elderly may have to accept some loss of government benefits in the name of fairness and revenue-raising.

But do we have to scared, very scared of this eventuality? Do we have to ring the alarm bells, and raise the pension age to 70? An ageing society creates opportunities. It’s not all about costs. And it’s time we framed the debate about the future in a more positive way. “The best way to approach it is to look for ways that older Australians can participate more effectively in our society and our economy to the best of their abilities,” the Blueprint says.

Let’s have a look at some of the opportunities. Business opportunities abound. If entrepreneurs took off their blinkers, they would see the over-60s not as an unfashionable demographic but a desirable one. It’s no secret older people have spending power. Baby boomers spend a lot on travel, recreation and culture. If you’re not rich enough to bankroll your adult children into housing, you might as well pamper yourself. The age group 50-69 alone holds more than 40 per cent of the nation’s wealth. It’s a market segment crying out for entrepreneurial attention. From dating websites, to longevity insurance, from IT products to toothpaste that promises healthy gums, and reverse parking systems that help drivers with bad necks, the possibilities are endless. It’s not just about incontinence pads, and devices of the “I’ve-fallen-and-can’t-get-up” variety that are needed. That’s the old business of old age. The new business involves technologies that promote mobility, autonomy and social connection.

Another area of opportunity is philanthropy. Many older people have considerable capacity to give more, and giving tends to increase with age. They should be assisted and encouraged to do so. “Giving provides a great way for older Australians to demonstrate that ageing isn’t a cost to society,” the Blueprint says. It recommends banks launch a “golden givers” campaign to encourage older clients to establish charitable trusts and foundations while offering services to manage the funds.

Other Australian voices also argue for a more positive approach. Patricia Edgar, author of In Praise of Ageing, says the productivity of older people is written out of the country’s GDP because we don’t include the value of the caring, voluntary and creative work they do. In this way the “dependence” of older people is exaggerated, and their economic contribution downplayed. “Our assumptions about the burden of the aged, the dependency ratio and the future workforce are riven with inaccuracy,” she says.

The Age Discrimination Commissioner, Susan Ryan, urges against “scrabbling round for a few sticks to beat our older citizens with.” At the same time she’s clear-eyed about the changes needed to embrace an ageing society. In her recent address to the National Press Club, titled Longevity Revolution – Crisis or Opportunity, she highlights the need for older people to stay in the workforce longer for their sake and the country’s. A further three per cent increase in workforce participation amongst workers aged 55 and over would contribute an extra $33 billion to the nation’s GDP – a sum to gladden the hearts of Treasurers, and young taxpayers alike.

But raising the pension age won’t achieve this. It will require a different mindset towards older workers, more flexible workplaces, an end to ageism, and more help for mid-career workers to plan for the long-term. The debate about the ageing society has used too many scare tactics. To embrace the opportunities we need a positive agenda: how can we best harness the talents, money, and willingness to work of older Australians without making them feel guilty for being alive?

Source: Adele Horin: Coming of Age

Training to boost your career

Posted by Judy Higgins on 29 September 2014

Training for an unemployed older jobseeker can be tricky. Judy Higgins of OlderWorkers.com.au provides her top tips on how the right training can help you find employment or start a whole new career.

Often if unemployed older jobseekers are lucky enough to get an interview, they are told you are overqualified’, and on that basis why would you waste the time, effort and money to train. Right? Not necessarily. There are instances where training can assist you into employment.

Train into a job

Some organisations in specific skill shortage industries – aged care for instance – develop and set up their own training organisations, recruit participants from the local area, train them and place them into jobs within their organisation. This system works well for everyone. The organisation has local, trained staff and the training often leads to a job for participants. Check out your local papers or local employer websites – they often advertise for participants.

Refresh and update your skills

If you have been out of work for any length of time, it’s useful to train and update your skills. Keeping your skills relevant also addresses the myth that older workers don’t want to undertake training, and shows any prospective employer that you are keen to learn, and have made an effort to do so. This is particularly appropriate if you have been with your last employer for quite a long time; chances are you are trained to suit their way of doing things, so a generic skills update could prove very useful.

Train for a change of career

Some industries are contracting in terms of numbers of workers required – for instance the car industry, print journalism, public service (administration, policy and program/project staff). If you are coming out of such an industry then it is wise to look at training for a change of career. Take the time to do some research and find out what the growth industries are in your area. Check out your local Chamber of Commerce site and the Local Government or Council site – they often provide information on developing local industries.

Train to be self-employed

If you have received a redundancy, you may consider training in a specific area that enables you to become self-employed. You can purchase a franchise, set up a business or simply contract out your new-found skills. The word seniorpreneur’ has been created due to the number of older people turning into entrepreneurs. Self-employment is a good option for some.

The old adage you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ has never been further from the truth. More and more training organisations are seeing older people in their classes. Is it something you should consider?

Source: https://www.mynrma.com.au/living-well-navigator/work-volunteering-blogs/training-to-boost-your-career.htm

5 tips for older workers looking for work

A new generation of retirees is heading back to work. Here’s some advice on how to snag one of those encore jobs

By Adam Mayers

Encore! Encore! One more time.

That’s what many retired Canadians want to do: Go back to work, try something new, perhaps with fewer hours and less pay, but find a way to keep active, stay engaged and get paid for it.

Longevity is rising, we’re healthier and so the traditional notion of retirement has faded. Some want to work because they have to and others because they want to.

But if our needs are changing, our employers aren’t keeping up with the times, says Adina Lebo, chair of the downtown Toronto chapter of the Canadian Association of Retired People (CARP). Attitudes in the workplace are geared to forcing older workers out of full-time work and few employers have mechanisms to offer a transition to part-time work.

“The workforce is built to push people out at 65,” says Lebo, who joined CARP four years ago after a 30-year career in the film and TV industry. “While people are looking for a continuation of their career, or a way to apply their skills in a new area, the doors are often closed.”

CARP sponsored a job fair in Toronto last year to link employers with 50+ candidates. There was plenty of interest from companies with franchising and sales opportunities. The former requires an investment on your part and the latter uses your networks to sell products or services.

“There’s no ageism in sales,” says Lebo. “It’s on commission, so there’s no risk to the employer. They use you and your community to sell, so that was wide open.”

There are jobs out there for older works, but competition is stiff. For many, the first step is dusting off their resumes and polishing rusty interview skills.

Marie Bountrogianni, a former Ontario cabinet minister and currently Dean of the G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University, has some advice. Here are her five top job hunting tips for older workers.

Three things to avoid in an interview:

Talking about your age: “This is always tricky,” says Bountrogianni, who has a Ph.D. in education and was chief psychologist for the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board before entering politics.

“Employers are not allowed to ask about your age, but they often hint at it. Talk around your age in constructive ways. [For example,] you can indicate that because you no longer have little children you have a lot of flexibility around scheduling.

Tipping your tech hand: “Be careful. Don’t just say you use Facebook and Twitter. Show how you have used social media to increase sales, or promote an event, so they won’t think you are on it all the time.”

Don’t say, I’m ready for a change: “While it may be very true, it sounds like you are bored, and have grown stale in your current job,” Bountrogiann says.

Two ways to spruce up your resume:

Age proof it: Don’t go back to the beginning of your career. Choose the experiences that relate to the job you are applying for. Do not put in specific dates for jobs or schooling.

Show what you have done: Use a functional, rather than chronological resume, so that you can bundle your experiences without dating them and relate skills to the job advertised.

Bountrogianni says employers want to know you’re not planning to coast at their expense.

They also want to know you are still current, so she advises taking courses in your field of interest and keeping up to date. Always have questions in an interview, because employers want you to be interested in them and about their job.

Bountrogianni is Ontario’s representative on Skills Connect Inc., a national non-profit organization founded by the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce in 2010. It receives government funding and owns ThirdQuarter, a national employment recruiter for people aged 45 and over. More agencies are working with older adults, including The Challenge Factory, which has offices in Toronto, Calgary and Ottawa.

The Chang School offers programs of interest to 50+ workers. Wednesday, Bountrogianni is hosting a free breakfast between 8:30 and 10:30 as part of a panel discussion on aging in the workforce. It is being held at Heaslip House, 7th Floor, 297 Victoria Street.

Toronto Star

Gen Z falling through the cracks of economic recovery

Date September 23, 2014 Michael Emerson

Jobs are growing at a faster rate for baby boomers, and Australians in their twilight years, than for youth and young adults.

These surprising statistics are revealed in a study conducted for Fairfax Media.

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, Australian jobs have grown steadily, with 870,000 jobs added to the economy. However, the growth among lifestage segments has been varied. This has led to significant attitudinal changes among workers to employment, especially among the younger Gen Z (teens) and Gen Y (young adults) segments.

As the chart shows, among full time jobs, Gen Z and Gen Y, have lost employment since 2008Gen Z has lost 48,000 jobs whereas for Gen Y the market has shrunk by 54,000 jobs, according to labour force data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, modelled by EMDA, a business solution company, for Fairfax Media.

So what’s happened?

In any economic downturn, the young and least experienced suffer the most. Before the global crisis, Gen Z and Gen Y were known to be demanding. They were used to jobs being plentiful and so could pick and choose. Loyalty to an employer was an old-fashioned idea to them.

In the more difficult job market since 2008, there have been profound changes in attitudes, such as delivering value to employers and concerns over the security of employment have become more prominent.

Unemployment among the younger segments is also the highest in the workforce. Among Gen Z it’s three times the average than for the rest of the workforce.

Among Gen Z there are sub-segments, which signal extremely concerning employment outcomes. Among indigenous Gen Z, unemployment rates are just over 30 per cent and among Gen Z new arrivals to Australia the rate is 42 per cent, according to census data.

Lack of education and work-related skills are major barriers to employment for these segments, and if unemployed for six months or more, it’s hard to get them into the workforce. Consequently, entrenched unemployment with its social and financial problems for the individual and society become the norm.

Education remains a key for a successful entry to the workforce.

For baby boomers, the job market has continued to be one of steady growth, with 240,000 full-time jobs added for this segment since 2008. Their experience and skills have kept them in good stead.

The real surprise is the growth in twilight careers (workers aged 63 or more). Although the smallest segment of the workforce, there are now 580,000 twilight workers employed, which is only slightly less than Gen Z (681,000). For this segment, 79,000 full-time jobs have been created since 2008. Their lifetime of work skills, their loyalty and reliability is increasingly appreciated by employers.

There is still some resistance to employing older workers, although this attitude is gradually changing. This is good for twilight workers and the economy overall, but the downside could be there are fewer older Australians available to provide care for their grandkids. The numbers are significant: according to the census about 350,000 Australians over the age of 63 cared for other children, so more twilight workers in the paid workforce means less time available for child care duties. For Generation X parents, this can be a significant issue as one important factor which contributes to labour market participation among parents in the Gen X lifestage is access to child care.

Michael Emerson, is an economist and director of Economic and Market Development Advisors, EMDA. emda.com.au.

Source: The Age

Older workers need ‘career check-ups’, says Age Discrimination Commissioner

Date September 17, 2014

Judith Ireland

Check-up: Age Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan has said older employees should have routine career check-ups much like they have health check-ups. Photo: Andrew Quilty (AFR)

Australians approaching their 50s should have routine “career check-ups” to prevent unemployment as they get older, just as they would have a regular health check-up with their doctor, Age Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan says.

In a bid to address Australia’s ageing population and unemployment among 50 and 60-somethings, Ms Ryan said there should be a nationally co-ordinated approach to help everyone at midlife “check where they are and change direction if they need to”.

Ms Ryan will tell the National Press Club on Wednesday that TAFE colleges should be at the centre of the plan where workers would be given a skills analysis and advice about what sort of job they could expect to do for the following 20 years, particularly if they are in a declining industry, physically unable to continue their existing job or burnt out.

“This is not a crisis management plan,” she will say. “It is a preventative approach that would have older people recharging and moving smoothly to the next stage of employment.”

In her address, Ms Ryan will also announce that she has asked Roy Morgan to conduct the first ever national prevalence study of age discrimination in the workplace. The survey will begin in coming weeks, with initial results in December and a full report in March.

“I do not wish to pre-empt its results; my guess however, is it will signal an urgent and massive challenge,” Ms Ryan will say.

She will tell the Press Club there are millions of people over 55 who want a job but cannot get one: “older people are more likely to be unemployed long term than any other group”.

She will also note that more than 50 per cent of age discrimination complaints made to the Australian Human Rights Commission relate to employment.

The Age Discrimination Commissioner will discuss the negative assumptions that younger people – particularly those under 35 – have about older workers. She will argue that the workforce needs to move away from a model that “seeks and favours only the youthful, presumed ‘hungry’ and ‘high energy’ dynamos”.

“The new model should include all skilled and high energy candidates, regardless of how many birthdays they have chalked up.”

Ms Ryan, who was education minister under the Hawke government, will also argue for greater flexibility in the job market. “All employers need to ditch assumptions that job flexibility is an aberration to be reluctantly granted only to women returning from maternity leave.”

Ms Ryan said those in their 50s and 60s could be working at close to the levels of those in their 30s and 40s.

“It makes serious economic sense, as well as common sense, to harness this human capital.”

Modelling by Deloitte Access Economics for the Human Rights Commission shows that a 3 per cent increase in workforce participation for workers over 55 – beyond an already expected 2.7 per cent by 2024-25 – would contribute an extra $33 billion to Australia’s GDP.

This comes as the government seeks to increase the pension age to 70 by 2035 to make welfare spending “sustainable”. The previous Labor government already increased it from 65 to 67 by 2023.

Source: SMH

Posts Tagged “jobs for over 50”