A rudderless ship: government's older worker policy

It's an irony that recruiters, who are the main perpetrators of age prejudice, produce reports such as 'Coming of Age' by Chandler MacLeod, telling us how bad aged prejudice is. No kidding.

It's obvious that as Australia's population ages and projected revenues drop over the next 20 years, that policy-wise, it makes excellent sense to ensure that the Boomer generation has the capacity not only to work where work is available but to work longer to save for their own retirement.

Unfortunately, there is no guiding hand at the helm of the largest demographic transition in Australia's history.

Chandler Macleod failed to examine the Productivity Commissions 2013 report 'An Ageing Australia: Preparing for the Future' or the Consultative Forum on Mature Age Participation 2012 report on barriers to employment.

These were seminal studies but the Chandler MacLeod report did make one controversial finding: "The surveyed businesses believe the main reason employers are not hiring older workers is that older workers simply aren't applying for the roles advertised."

So it's the older job seekers fault? This is a cracker. Minister's offices, the Department of Employment and the Office of the Age Discrimination Commissioner, are hit by thousands of letters of complaint every year, many with bona fide and actionable claims of age prejudice.

Paradoxically, that's a good sign as ten years ago few people investigated these allegations. But it's also damning evidence of the failure of Government (any government) and its agencies, to educate employers and recruiters about why age prejudice is a human rights issue, and how it is condemning the nation to further debt.

The Commonwealth Government is pouring $55 million in to a raft of programs and initiatives, under the Experience+ suite of programs. The programs aim to ameliorate the social and economic effects of an ageing workforce by the retirement of the Boomers. The Government created the Consultative Forum on Mature Age Participationand established the position of Age Discrimination Commissioner, currently filled by Susan Ryan.

I worked for DEEWR in Canberra in this area and enjoyed the camaraderie. I could have done it all from my home office in Adelaide, but I digress. It would have been better throwing the whole $55 million on number 36 black on the Crown Casino roulette table for all the good these initiatives have done or are doing.

Why? Employers don't know about them. I was told to stop disseminating positive news stories I had gathered from across Australia, about older worker productivity and hires. Why? Beats me. The issue was just starting to get traction. It's harder implementing a policy than creating one. I wandered off in to the area of population dynamics and business planning.

The Government would have been better off running a national campaign against ageist attitudes in recruitment firms (old and young) and channeling the bulk of the money in to long term job creation schemes, which generate incomes in strategic areas such as education (TAFE) and health.

Over the past four years, more than 20 reports and surveys have examined ageing and demographic change in Australia. There are also three large ARC university grants currently researching various aspects of the Boomers ageing in Australia.

Writing reports is an industry in itself. Whether anyone reads them and acts on the findings is another matter. Rarely has a social and economic phenomena generated so much paper and website content with so little result.

Exhaustive reports by National Seniors, the Consultative Forum and the recommendations of the Advisory Panel on the Economic Potential of Senior Australians,

comprehensively documented what needs to be done.The fact is, no one is doing it. We just get more reports.

Four factors are at work:

1. Australia's economy is slowing

2. People are living longer

3. Birth rates are falling so the tax base will shrink - even with high immigration

4. The problem seems a long way off, although we are at the leading edge now.

According to the Productivity Commission Research Paper (Nov 2013), 'An Ageing Australia: Preparing for the Future', labour participation rates are predicted to fall from 65 to 60 per cent from 2012 to 2060, and overall labour supply per capita to contract by 5 per cent.

"Average labour productivity growth will fall 1.5 per cent per annum from 2012-13 and per capita income is expected to drop to 1.1 per cent per annum compared with an average growth rate of 2.7 per cent over the last 20 years."

"Federal and state governments will face additional pressures on their budgets equivalent to around 6 per cent of national GDP by 2060, principally reflecting the growth of expenditure on health, aged care and the Age Pension" the report said.

A 6.0 per cent impost on GDP (currently $1.5 trillion) works out on a rising scale to about $25 billion per annum by 2060. While GDP is projected to grow to $2.6 trillion by 2030, the bad news is we don't have now, or projected in to the future, anywhere near that sort of revenue.

Recruitment agencies must be regulated so that they act in the best interest of their clients, the individual and the nation. At the moment, they are simply money factories traducing older worker experience and burying professional ethics next to merit.

While the unemployment rate for 55+ is low at about 3.5 per cent compared to youth unemployment 11.8 per cent, unemployed older job seekers 55+ on average can take more than 72 weeks to find work, compared to about 40 weeks in the 25-44 age range. People talk about 'encore careers' but many of these are slayed by age prejudice.

Consider this: in June 2012, there were 550,000 recipients of Newstart Allowance. Of those, 50,000 aged 55 years and older are 'very long-term' unemployed. I haven't included those who have fled to sickness benefits because they have no superannuation.

This is just a tiny sample of those that will lean heavily on a shrinking tax base over the next 40 years as more people retire and then realize they don't have enough super, and then try to get back in to the workforce. The Government seems more intent on raising the age pension age rather than creating and implementing any long-term strategy.

I will state it again. No one is in control of one of the largest economic and social engineering projects in Australia's history.

Future generations should not be penalized because the current generation wallowed in reports and failed to put their shoulders to the wheel.