Posts Tagged “jobs for seniors”

Linfox stands down unfit, middle-aged workers without pay

Date: April 4, 2015

Nick Toscano

Older warehouse workers are being stood down without pay at Linfox sites across Melbourne, fanning fears the transport giant is forcing out permanent staff in favour of “churn-and-burn” casuals.

John Russell has been laid off by his employer Linfox on returning to work after a back injury with 37 years on the job. Photo: Simon Schluter

John Russell looked over the letter from his boss again, staggered by the news.

The forklift driver had taken time off work with a shoulder injury but his doctor had cleared him as fit to return. He assumed his job of 37 years would be safe. He was wrong.

The letter from transport giant Linfox said the 65-year-old was now stood down without pay after an assessment by company doctors. It said he was deemed unable to perform “inherent requirements” of the job, specifically, using a hand-held scanning device.

Older workers like Mr Russell are being stood down from Linfox warehouses across Melbourne, according to their union, which has accused the company of phasing out permanent staff in favour of “churn-and-burn” casuals from labour-hire companies.

Organisers say up to 100 older or unfit workers have been targeted at a single distribution centre in Truganina over the past 12 months, under a “blanket policy” to wipe out those unable perform every aspect of warehouse work.

The figure is not disputed by Linfox, which said the stand-downs were the result of productivity-boosting initiatives introduced last July at the distribution centre that Linfox operates for Coles.

Mr Russell spent most of his working life employed by Linfox, Australia’s largest private logistics company. But he is now in limbo – jobless without being officially terminated, and unable to claim the pension.

“I felt terrible, actually,” he said.

“Linfox has hundreds of sites around Melbourne and there must be jobs out there with lighter duties if that’s what they want … but they are replacing the older people with younger casuals [who] they can work as hard as possible. It shows a lack of loyalty and disrespect.”

National Union of Workers organiser Matt Toner said the company had instituted a blanket policy of targeting workers it considered “liabilities”.

“Within a warehouse there are different jobs done by people who are a bit older and have been with the company a long time, like fork-work, lane-marshalling and clerical,” he said.

“But new management now says that unless you are doing everything here, we don’t want you here.”

Mr Toner said workers planned to step up industrial pressure on Linfox management to stop older staff being “thrown on the scrap heap”.

A Linfox spokeswoman said the new processes at Truganina were communicated to company employees and were not in violation of workplace law.

“To date, the Fair Work Commission has not indicated that Linfox is in breach of the relevant provisions arising from the national enterprise agreement or with respect to specific general protections arising from the Fair Work Act,” she said.

The company had also engaged an workplace expert to draw up “reasonable expectancies” for orders to be completed and ready for distribution, she said.

Industrial tension between the union and Linfox appear to escalating after the company recently filed a submission to a sweeping review of the Australian industrial relations system. Linfox alleges shift workers were harassed by union recruiters at the site in 2013 and has made fresh calls for restrictions on organisers entering workplaces.

The union strongly denies the claims, and said it was disappointed by the company’s decision to air allegations dating back two years. Linfox’s submission includes extracts of 10 written complaints by workers employed that year and said existing right-of-entry laws lacked balance.

Source: Brisbane Times

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

Employment service providers paid to place jobseekers in roles lasting only a month

Tony Abbott says shorter roles offer a ‘stepping stone into secure long-term jobs’ but Labor says it is simply the revival of a failed Howard-era policy and will increase jobseeker churn

Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson with Eric Abetz, Tony Abbott and the assistant employment minister Luke Hartsuyker launching jobactive on Tuesday. Photograph: Karen Sweeny/AAP

Employment service providers will be offered cash incentives to place jobseekers in short-term positions as well as longer term ones under changes announced by the federal government on Tuesday.

The new “jobactive” system will offer service providers a payment for filling four week-long vacancies, as well vacancies lasting 12 or 26 weeks.

“In the past we have only paid on 12 and 26-week outcomes,” the prime minister,Tony Abbott, told reporters in Geelong.

“We know there are a lot of short-term jobs available, particularly in regional Australia, there are jobs that are seasonal and these are often the start of someone’s renewed connection with the labour market. That is why an important innovation in this new jobactive system is the four-week outcome payment.”

Abbott said short-term work was “the best possible stepping stone into secure long-term jobs”.

“The best preparation for work is work,” the prime minister said.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) said the policy would “encourage service providers to churn vulnerable jobseekers through multiple short term job contracts in order to claim multiple payments”, ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said.

“The ACTU has consistently advocated for the government to introduce a 52 week payment to incentivise service providers to place jobseekers into long-term work. This would be a much better alternative to a four week payment.”

The initiative, which comes off the back of the Howard-era Job Network policy, has been panned by Labor.

“The government’s return to the failed Job Network model, with a new name, will not help unemployed Australians into work,” shadow employment minister Brendan O’Connor told Guardian Australia.

“We are not convinced the introduction of a new four week payment will do anything to support job seekers into decent work. Instead it will lead to increased jobseeker churn and job insecurity.”

O’Connor said that the Coalition must not take resources away from jobs training.

“Labor is deeply concerned that the new employment services model will in fact leave job seekers without the support they need,” he said.

Under the jobactive scheme, money for training will be provided only if jobseekers need it to secure a position that has already been advertised. Job agencies will have to risk their own money to provide individuals with training they think will be needed to gain employment more broadly.

David Thompson from the peak organisation representing non-profit employment services, Jobs Australia, welcomed the jobactive scheme, but warned that the training element “might be too restrictive”.

He said many long-term unemployed people needed training to reorient themselves to workplaces before applying for specific jobs, and that training could help jobseekers whose industries were suffering job losses.

“The labour market of today and the labour market of tomorrow are very different,” Thompson said.

The employment minister, Eric Abetz, said unemployed people who took on short-term contracts or undertook work for dole programs were healthier.

“All the data tells us that if you are gainfully employed, your mental, physical health, yourself esteem and social interaction are all enhanced and not only for you as an individual but everybody else in your household.

“That is why, for the long term unemployed, to be engaged in work for the dole, for example, is not only an important mechanism to say thank you to your community, but it is also of untold social good to the individual,” he said.

A total of 66 job agencies have been offered contracts to deliver on the jobactive scheme, from the 184 that put in tenders. Their contracts will last for five years rather than three, a move the government said will provide certainty for service providers.

The new scheme begins on July 1 and also includes targeted programs for Indigenous jobseekers based on the work undertaken by mining magnate Andrew Twiggy Forrest, who has conducted a review into Indigenous jobs and training.

“He has been a real apostle of getting away from this training for training’s sake notion and ensuring that people are being prepared, not for training but for work,” Abbott said of Forrest.

The government will implement job targets for Indigenous jobseekers for the first time under the new initiative. The targets will vary from region to region.

“The targets will ensure that employment service providers are finding jobs for Indigenous jobseekers at the same rate as for other job seekers in a region,” a spokesman for the Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, told Guardian Australia.

“Providers will also be held accountable for their performance in meeting these targets through the star ratings system. A poor performance will affect an organisation’s star ratings and this will have an impact on whether they are given any future business from the government.”

Source: The Guardian

Juanita Phillips: Grey hair shouldn’t cost you your job

Date: March 30, 2015

Phillips as she appears on our television screens, with her hair dyed blonde. Photo: Damian Bennett

Here’s how I really look. Or at least how I would look, if I was brave enough. It’s how I’d look if I felt able to age naturally, without fear of risking my livelihood.

On air, my hair is the same colour it was 25 years ago, when I first started reading the news. The difference is that these days it takes two hours and several bottles of chemicals, once a month, to get me there.

The truth is, I’m a 51-year-old woman and I have grey hair. Not a glamorous silver streak. Completely grey. Grandma grey. “Have you ever thought about just going grey?” the hairdresser asked. “It’d save a lot of time.” An innocent question, but the very thought was terrifying.

Juanita Phillips, digitally altered (with her permission) to show her hair in its natural, grey state. Photo: Damian Bennett

I’ve been hiding my grey hair since my early 20s, when it first appeared. I remember feeling panicked. Perhaps it’s the equivalent of men going bald. Thick, glossy hair represents youth and vitality. Grey hair or no hair means one thing: old age.

When I started in TV, it was my dirty little secret which only the hairdressers knew. “Colour me younger!” I’d say as I sank into the make-up chair to get my roots done. By the time I was 40, they were telling me I was 60 per cent grey. After that, I stopped asking.

A few years ago, tired of the pretence, I decided to go silver at the front. Nobody seemed to notice. But after a few months, my hairdresser begged me to get rid of it. “It’s so ageing,” he said. “And I’m worried you might lose your job!”

It goes without saying that getting older holds no such perils for men on TV. Grey hair, bald patches, wrinkles, glasses. They can even get away with a paunch. If anything, ageing enhances a man’s gravitas. Brian Henderson was still reading the news at 71. The late Ian Ross was 68. The ABC’s own Ian Henderson is 61. But how many grey-haired women with glasses present prime-time nightly news in Australia?

Prime-time television news seems populated almost entirely by two groups: thin, gorgeous young women (nearly all blonde), and men of all shapes and ages. There’s a handful of older women – those in their 40s and 50s – but they don’t look their age and, with the notable exception of Lee Lin Chin, they don’t have grey hair. And women on Australian TV in their 60s and 70s? Apart from Caroline Jones on Australian Story, virtually non-existent. It’s like an entire generation has been vaporised.

Here’s what really happened to them: they hit menopause and they stopped looking like babes. It wasn’t that long ago that Mary Kostakidis was pushed aside for a younger man as SBS World News presenter, and it’s been less than a decade since some long-gone dinosaur coined the vile term “f…ability” in assessing the appeal of female presenters.

But on the positive side, things are changing. That blokey culture is way past its use-by date, and well on the way to being “boned”. In its place, you have TV executives like ABC news director Kate Torney, a strong advocate of gender equality in broadcasting.

There are more women aged over 50 in high-profile news roles than ever before. Lisa Wilkinson, Liz Hayes, Tracy Grimshaw, Sandra Sully, Kay McGrath, Helen Dalley, Geraldine Doogue and Ann Sanders are among the first generation of women to survive this long in TV. They’re strong, confident women who’ve had lifetime careers; not the kind of women who’ll obediently fade away when the boss decides he’d prefer someone younger and prettier.

The big test will be when this current crop moves into their 60s and 70s. That’s when it’ll get interesting because the real issue for TV women is not so much getting old. It’s looking old.

So back to the question of whether I’d go on air with grey hair. I’ve been hiding it for 30 years. That’s some 700 hours of my life baking my head in a poultice of chemicals. Oh for the sweet relief of not having to worry about it!

But I’m a 51-year-old woman in TV. I know the score. Grey’s fine with me, and I’d like to think the audience could cope with it. But the TV industry? I wouldn’t bet my career on it. Not just yet.

Source: Daily Life

Federal government to confirm plans to expand work for the dole to 49 year olds

MARCH 27, 2015

New program … The federal government will confirm its expanded work for the dole program next week. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied

AUSTRALIANS who are under 50 and out of work will be forced to work for the dole from July.

The move comes as part of an overhaul of the job placement system designed to cut red tape and put an end to wasteful taxpayer subsidised training that doesn’t lead to work.

Currently, only jobseekers aged from 18 to 30 who live in 18 trial sites across Australia are required to undertake compulsory work for the dole.

From July, the scheme will be expanded nationally and take in all job seekers up to the age of 49.all job seekers up to the age of 49.

The new mutual obligation requirements will see Australians under 50 having to undertake work for the dole programs for 15 hours a week, for six months of every year they remain unemployed.

New system … The federal government is poised to announce the outcome of its tender process for the $5.1 billion job services network. Picture: Supplied Source: Supplied

Those under 30 will have to do 25 hours of work for the dole a week, and all job seekers will have to apply for 20 jobs a month – half of what the government initially proposed when it released the details of tender process this time last year and was forced into a back down.

TOUGH CHANGES: Jobseekers must look for work daily

HIT LIST: Abbott government reveals the first work for the dole regions to be targeted

Assistant Minister for Employment Luke Hartsuyker, who is expected to unveil the companies and organisations who won government contracts to place jobseekers in work next week, said the job placement system needed an overhaul because it was mired in red-tape.

“Employment providers had become tied up with endless paperwork — providers told me how they spent more than 50 per cent of their time filling in forms,” Mr Hartsuyker told News Corp.

“Job seekers complained of completing endless amounts of training but with no job opportunities; one job seeker told me he could have wallpapered a room with all the certificates he had.”

It is understood the new model will provide financial incentives for job service providers to place people in real jobs — not just send them to training courses, or process job application forms.

News Corp Australia understands job providers will receive outcome payments after placing unemployed people in work for 4, then 12, and then 26 weeks.

Job service providers will be offered 5 year contracts in a move designed to provide greater consistency for the employment services sector, and providers working in regional areas will receive additional payments to recognise the difficulties of placing job seekers in work outside the major cities.

Laws passed last year designed to crack down job seekers who miss compulsory interviews with their job placement provider, will also take effect from July, and will see welfare payments suspended and not back-paid for failing to attend regular meetings without a reasonable excuse.

In the last financial year alone, about 4.5 million compulsory appointments were missed by jobseekers.

Source: News Corp

Older workforce needs fresh blood

Nathan Woulfe Recruitment Editor | 28th Mar 2015

OURS is an aging population, a fact that brings with it a double impact on health care and social services.

As older workers move into retirement, they take with them decades of valuable experience, reducing the collective skill set of the labour force.

As they move into retirement and then old age, they put their own pressures on the sector as their demand for services increases – demand which must be met by a smaller labour force.

Given that two-pronged pressure, there is some relief in the continued strong employment growth in the sector over the past decade. It’s the largest employing industry in the country, accounting for about 12% of total national employment, or some 1.4 million workers.

More than half a million of those workers are located outside state capitals.

Over the five years to November 2017, according to the Department of Employment, employment in the sector is expected to continue to increase strongly, adding more than 177,000 new jobs – more than one-fifth of the total new jobs expected over the same period.

The industry’s workforce is female-dominated – most of the largest occupations have relatively small proportions of males employed. It also has a slightly higher proportion of older workers than the average across all industries.

Workers in the health care and social assistance industry are generally highly skilled. Most workers hold post-school qualifications, reflecting the requirements for entry to most of the occupations that are key to the sector.

A high proportion of workers are professionals (almost twice the average for all industries).

Nurses could be one of the most heavily impacted industry subsectors as older workers move into retirement.

The average age of Australia’s nurses is increasing, with nearly one in four now aged 55 or older.

There are plenty of nursing graduates ready to step up into the positions vacated through retirements, but while they can bring untapped enthusiasm, they bring little to no experience.

How to combat that talent drain remains a large issue facing the healthcare sector, but one that ensures plenty of opportunities for those looking to start a career in the industry.

Source Queensland Times

Intergenerational Report says Australians to work longer

Opinion: Public expectations with retirement and living longer are in a period of transition

WELL I’ve finally reached the proverbial three score years and ten as mentioned in Psalm 90.

It is the scriptural statute of limitations. After age 70, I am supposed to be a time-expired man and become an honorary member of the community. This I am not.

In recent months, a public debate has raged in Australia surrounding the rising retirement age. Labor increased the retirement age to 67 and the Liberals are proposing age 70 by 2035.

Forecasts predict that by 2050 the ratio of working age to retired aged Australians will fall from 5:1 (in 2010) to 3:1.

RETIREMENT: Treasurer Joe Hockey issues call to arms for grey army

TOOLKIT: Quarter of Bunnings’ workforce aged over 50

OPINION: Inability to find jobs for older people reveals gap in pension policy

ACTU president Ged Kearney believes the Government is out of touch with the reality of life for Australian workers and predicts it will lead to grandmothers and grandfathers joining the dole queue.

In my case and for many of my friends, this could not be further from the truth.

Working to age 70 and beyond does not have to be drudgery or a sentence to toil in the salt mines. It is about staying engaged, alive and purposeful. It is also a good way to keep a financial safety net in place just in case.

The ballooning number of older workers highlights a retirement revolution. As people live longer, public expectations with retirement are in a period of transition. For many aged 65 and older, it is a positive choice.

Employers are realising that older workers offer a good work ethic.

One of the keys is finding age-friendly employers that respect older workers and offer job flexibility options. Employers are realising that older workers offer a good work ethic, are punctual, willing to work on weekends, get on well with customers and rarely complain. Businesses that offer flexible employment options to older workers see them as a good investment.

I have enjoyed a career and lifestyle transition with multiple options and experienced no difficulties adjusting to new work requirements. I continue to work 20 to 30 hours a month but at a different pace. Older workers like me from diverse career backgrounds find employment such as promotional or customer service workers in large retail chains or shopping malls, in hardware chains, in coffee shops and food outlets or conduct field interviews for research firms. I am registered with five different employers who offer me work opportunities. My life is now a mix of working, learning, relaxing, and trying new things as well as a time of growth and reinvention.

For those who want to work, but are lucky enough not to need the income, volunteering is a wonderful option. Volunteering is a great way to stay active while making a significant contribution to a worthy organisation. Volunteering opportunities abound in every community.

But it’s not all work with no play. My wife and I are avid snow skiers and travel to Canada for four weeks to ski each year. We also manage to enjoy a driving holiday somewhere within Australia annually.

Retirement used to signal the end of a productive life for workers, but more and more, retirement is now a transition point for beginning a new phase of your life. For those approaching retirement, now is the time to develop a strategy to work fewer hours, try a new career or business, learn new skills, further your education, give back through volunteering and most importantly, enjoy life.

Ian Wallace is a Brisbane freelance writer and retiree

Source: Courier Mail

Talkin’ about my generation: harnessing the power of oldness at work

25 Mar 2015 | Diversity

The release of the Intergenerational report in early March catapulted me into a state of confusion.

Only the night before, I had been at the Australian Human Rights Commission launch of their corporate toolkit where they played a short video developed by the Age and Disability Discrimination Commissioner, the Hon Susan Ryan AO. This video celebrates the power of oldness. Not only is it thoroughly entertaining but it also dispels some of the myths about the capability of people in their more mature years.

However, the quirky video also revealed a sinister reality – that mature age workers face substantial discrimination and other barriers to fully participating in the workplace.

The Intergenerational Report has projected life expectancies to increase to 95.1 years for men and 96.6 years for women by 2054-55. It also projects labour market participation rates among those aged 65 and over to increase from the current rate of 12.9% to 17.3% in 2054-55. But until we tackle widespread ageism, is this increase really possible?

For most people, paid work is an incredibly important part of their lives. Not only does it provide a pathway to financial security but it also provides social interaction. It can contribute to improved self-esteem, mental and physical health and life satisfaction. Yet the Australian Human Rights Commission has reported that age discrimination was most likely to occur in the workplace, and that more than a third of Australians aged 55+ years have experienced age-related discrimination.

Dishearteningly, the Commission also found that younger business decision makers are the most likely to hold negative views of the workplace capabilities of older workers. In the context of an ageing population and an ageing workforce, this type of stereotyping is very problematic.

All of this is despite the fact that we know employing older workers can bring a range of benefits both to our workplaces and to the national economy. For example, increasing the labour participation of women throughout their working lives is estimated to have a major impact on the national economy.

Economist have noted the major impact that increasing the participation of older women would have on the economy. Modelling by the Productivity Commission indicates that increasing older women’s labour participation rates to match men’s could increase per capita GDP growth to 2044-45 by 1.5%. Research by the Grattan Institute has found that the combination of increased labour participation by women and older people could grow GDP by $50 billion over the next decade.

For older women, continued workforce participation throughout their later years is especially important as their retirement savings are likely to be much less than men’s. Men have an average super payout of $198,000, while women average $112,600[1] due to the increasing gender pay gap and time out of paid work to accommodate caring responsibilities.

There are clearly benefits to our economy of ensuring increased labour market participation by our older workers. But what other benefits can older workers bring to our workplaces?

Older workers often have significant knowledge and skills that they accumulated over their time in the workforce, and can assist employers and their colleagues to:

look at business operations from a different perspective
improve business processes
fill many skill or knowledge gaps
provide mentoring to less experienced employees
train other employees by sharing skills.

So how can we start a positive conversation in workplaces around engaging older workers and removing bias and discrimination against them?

Diversity Council Australia has conducted extensive research into labour market issues affecting mature age women and what employers can do to attract and retain older women. In our report, Older Women Matter, a framework is laid out to positively support women into improved workforce participation. This framework (see below) provides a set of guided principles around productive employee engagement, workplace flexibility and the removal of structural and cultural barriers.

Employers can implement a range of initiatives to better support mature age works, in particular older women. But first we need to stop thinking negatively about older workers and start appreciating the enormous potential and value that older workers bring to workplaces across the country.

Then we can truly harness the power of oldness.

By Lisa Annese
Chief Executive Officer
Diversity Council Australia

Robots to replace almost half of jobs over next 20 years: expert

Date: March 23, 2015

Forty-seven per cent of jobs in the US will be overtaken by computers in the next decade or two, according to research.

Robots and computer programs could almost wipeout human workers in jobs from cooks to truck drivers, a visiting researcher has warned.

Driverless cars and even burger-flipping robots are among the technological advancements gunning for low-skilled jobs across dozens of industries.

University of Oxford Associate Professor in machine learning Michael Osborne has examined the characteristics of 702 occupations in the US, predicting 47 per cent will be overtaken by computers in the next decade or two.

University of Oxford Associate Professor in machine learning Michael Osborne. Photo: Supplied

Those most at-risk jobs are in accommodation and food services (87 per cent of workers at high risk of being replaced), transportation and warehousing (75 per cent) and real estate (67 per cent).

By contrast, only about 10 per cent of workers in the information sector, software developers and higher level management were at risk of automation.

Professor Osborne said machines and computers still struggled with creativity, social intelligence and the manipulation of complex objects, making jobs with high requirements in these areas less vulnerable to robotisation.

“What unites all those bottlenecks [in computer ability] is kind of a deep reservoir of tacit knowledge humans possess that’s not readily reproducible in software,” he said.

“For example, in order to be creative, you need to understand the creative values of the society in which you find yourself.

“It’s very easy to design an algorithm that endlessly churns out paintings or pieces of music but it’s very difficult to get that algorithm to distinguish between good pieces of music and bad pieces of music.”

While the results, which Professor Osborne had been reproduced with similar results in the UK and Scandinavia, are bad news for individuals, they don’t necessarily predict a sky-rocketing unemployment rate as machines take over the workforce.

History is full of examples of machines replacing workers.

At the start of the 20th century about 40 per cent of US workers were in agriculture. That’s now about two per cent but the unemployment rate has remained relatively steady.

The invention of the car savaged jobs in the horse transport industry but gave rise to tourism and all the jobs that come with it.

In the early 19th century the Luddites rioted against labour-replacing machinery in the English textile industry, coining a name for someone resistant to change.

“These people weren’t irrational. There were genuine risks to their jobs,” Professor Osborne said.

“And while overall in the end unemployment wasn’t affected, there certainly were very severe negative consequences for those workers in the short term.

“I think the story here is fairly similar actually that in the end, yes we may see new forms of work generated but it’s not clear that the kind of people who are put out of work, which I said ought to be those at the low-skilled end of the spectrum, are necessarily going to be those that move into those new forms of work.”

Technology will need to become more user-friendly and create new kinds of jobs given there would always be a resistance to its adoption, Professor Osborne said.

But Hollywood’s imagery of terminators and other self-aware robots wreaking havoc was not a healthy narrative to consider, he said.

“In the long term yes, we will see machines that may be potentially so intelligent as to have goals that aren’t consistent with our own and there might be consequences of that,” he said.

“But I think in the near term the larger question is that of employment really, and how people’s work might be affected by increasing automation.”

Professor Osborne is in Brisbane to speak about the future of work at the Queensland University of Technology on Tuesday.

He said many newly created industries such as software development and big data analysis weren’t creating as many jobs as thought but renewable energy industries were booming in the US and said Australian governments should be fostering similar innovation.

“There’s not a single silver bullet solution to this issue but investing in those new industries is certainly an important plank,” he said.

– With AAP

Source: Brisbane Times

Report finds Kiwi organisations ill-equipped for ageing workforce

by Chloe Taylor | 19 Mar 20

According to a new report, workplaces are still biased when it comes to older workers.

Researchers from the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust conducted the report to look into the impact of New Zealand’s ageing workforce.

The study showed that one of the most common ways employers are dealing with skills shortages is by encouraging older workers to continue working past retirement age – but when it came to recruitment, older workers were the most likely to be overlooked.

Many HR directors and managers agreed that there was a “tipping point”, typically at around 50 to 60 years of age, at which workers were seen as less attractive.

The survey also revealed that 45% of organisations were facing a skills shortage, and the same proportion of participants believed that the ageing workforce had the potential to strongly impact both their business and their industry within the next five years.

In spite of this, just over one in four respondents held the view that their managers were not sufficiently prepared to deal with the ageing workforce.

The report also said that workplaces would soon begin to notice “a decreased labour supply, and with it a sudden loss in skills and experience … while an ageing population will put increasing pressure on health and welfare systems”.

Although workers of retirement age account for just 5% of the workforce, this is expected to increase to 13% by 2036. Just over one in five Kiwi workers are currently aged 55 or older, which is expected to rise to one in four within five years.

Bev Cassidy-Mackenzie, chief executive at the Equal Employment Opportunities Trust, told HRM that employers have an important role to play in debunking some of the myths and negative stereotypes surrounding older workers.

“These days, older workers and their future cohorts are likely to be fitter and healthier than previous generations, technologically savvy – contrary to popular belief, more dedicated, loyal and reliable,” she said. “They come to the role with rich life experiences, and the people skills they have gained in the process can prove invaluable.

Businesses of any size and sector can make the most out of their age diverse workforce through insight and an appreciation of the value each individual brings to the workplace.”

Cassidy-Mackenzie also outlined the strategies employers could consider putting in place.

“Organisations must gather information on their employees’ age profile and needs, then move to implement appropriate strategies for recruitment and retention such as reward systems, training and development, flexible working arrangements, job design and wellbeing,” she suggested. “This in turn will enable their wisdom workers to flourish and prosper and see real benefits for the sustainability of the business.”

According to Cassidy-Mackenzie, discrimination based on age is “still very much alive and kicking in many workplaces across New Zealand and beyond”.

“More than half of the respondents said that the tipping point was 50 years old! In a country which has one of the highest participation rates in the world for over 65s, this position is simply untenable.”

The reasons for people choosing to work past retirement age included income, job satisfaction, mental stimulation, physical activity and a sense of useful contribution.

Many workers’ choices also arose from the increasing availability of part-time work and flexible work arrangements, as well as people remaining in good health for longer, starting families later in life and the superannuation system.

Despite these trends, researchers found that most Kiwi organisations did not have a policy in place to address the issue of ageing workers.

The study’s authors encouraged employers to consider implementing such policies in order to reduce the pervasiveness of negative stereotypes around older workers.