I help clients fight age prejudice by employing the latest in resume writing and interview techniques. It ain’t easy but I’ve had some remarkable successes.

I gained invaluable insight in to methods to fight to notion that people are too old to work when I worked in the Department of Employment in Canberra.

Why if older people have so much experience and wisdom to offer, is ageism still such a stumbling block?

I asked that question 15 years ago and not much has changed. It’s prejudice by recruiters and employers.

Dr Williams from Melbourne University studies the relationship between age and the labour market.

“Older individuals are being judged without reference to their personal abilities and qualities,” Dr Williams said in Fairfax press recently. “Assumptions are made because they are seen to be part of a particular group, like the assumptions based on race or sex.”

Dr Williams said ageism is a social and economic problem. In 2017, 15 per cent of the Australian population was over 65. In 1977 it was 9 per cent.

By 2057 the figure is expected to be about 22 per cent and by the end of the century a quarter of the population will be over 65, although most of the Boomers will be dead or in aged care.

“An ageing society, cannot afford to neglect or undervalue the capacities of its older citizens, who represent a growing share of our population.”

As she points out in a paper published in the Australian Journal of Public Administration, there is no single solution. There never is with age prejudice.