Very little has changed in 15 years – or at least since I’ve been following the plight of older and younger job seekers who suffer age prejudice.
This edited story is from Anna Patty at the SMH. Wise Employment and others have been doing a lot of advertising online of late. Checkout if there are any new grants for hiring over 50s.
“The expressions on the faces of prospective employers seemed to give it all away. From the age of 50, Martin Smith felt he was considered “too old” for the job.
“When you are knocking on doors and see the look on people’s faces, you can read it,” he said. “As soon as you walk in the door you feel like you don’t have a chance against someone who is younger, fitter and clean cut.”
After a long period of unemployment while living in Sydney, Mr Smith, now aged 57, eventually found work at a manufacturing company in Bateman’s Bay.
That helped him find a stable home and enough money to buy a car.
Employment services provider MAX Solutions helped Mr Smith get qualifications in welding and powder coating and his job at Vision Railings and Glass.
He is now the head painter, powder coating aluminium products that his employer manufactures.
The Breaking the Age Barrier Report found that unemployed mature-age jobseekers were over-represented. People aged 55-64 were the largest unemployed group receiving JobKeeper payments during the pandemic.
Executive general manager of employment at MAX Solutions Fiona Lamb said 17.8 per cent of Australians are aged 50-64, yet they represented 28 per cent of MAX’s 116,899 unemployed customers in May.
The research revealed more than half of employers said they found mature-age workers to be more skilled compared to their younger peers in dispute resolution (57 per cent), mediation (55 per cent) and managing others (55 per cent).
For 60 per cent of employers surveyed, the main benefit they received from mature age workers was their “wealth of experience”, followed by “maturity and stability” (48 per cent) and “reliability and dependability” (43 per cent).”
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Yonks ago I write this about age prejudice, sums up the situation.