'Age apartheid' thrives as Gov's older worker policy fails

A decade of older worker initiatives by the Australian Government have failed through poor planning, shoddy implementation and a chronic lack of promotion.

Around 260,000 older job seekers aged 45 years and over are now looking for work and 128,000 of those are long term unemployed.

If you are under 55, on average you'll spend about 41 weeks out of work. If you're 55 and over, expect to be unemployed for 94 weeks or more. In fact, if you're over 55, the chances of ever working full time again are remote.

Older workers and job seekers have been shunted to the 'back of the employment bus'. They have become 'Uncle Toms', swallowing their dignity to get or hold a job. These men and women are not judged by the colour of their skin but by the grey in their hair and the wrinkles under their eyes.

I worked in the Mature Age Section in the Department of Employment in Canberra and saw how deeply ingrained 'age apartheid' was in Australian society. This tyranny has passed from generation to generation like a rogue gene. So those ostracising older job seekers and workers now can expect to be victimised themselves in 30 years time.

There's not much one can do about being 50. The madness of age prejudice is that exclusion or expulsion from the labour market is based on the year when one was born.

Back in 2004, the Howard Government unveiled a $12.1 million package called "Wise Workforce". It sought to keep older workers working longer and to get mature aged job seekers a job. The initiative crumbled.

In 2012, the Gillard Government launched Experience Plus, a suite of programs which sought to help 10,000 older job seekers but the $1000 Jobs Bonus attracted less than 300 people. I worked on the program in Canberra. It wasn't promoted and failed.

The Gillard Government scrapped three important initiatives in Experience Plus: On the Job Support, Experience Plus Training and Job Transition Support. These programs sought to help tradies and others get off the tools and through training, make the transition to work that was not so physically demanding. The programs were not promoted and withered on the vine.

The Corporate Champions program was a moderate success as it taught businesses how to recognise and counter the effects of an ageing workforce. The program was rolled out to 250 businesses across Australia before the money ran out.

In 2014 the Abbott Government launched the $524.8 millionRestart program with the aim of securing employment for 32,000 mature-age jobseekers every year through a $10,000 wage subsidy. Fewer than 3000 people have so far enrolled.

Back in March 2015, the then Treasurer, Joe Hockey, wrote in The Age, "Ageism will hold us back because, with an ageing population, we need to increase participation by older workers in the workforce. The evidence over recent decades indicates older people are underemployed for longer periods than younger workers. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show more than 35 per cent of jobseekers aged 55 and over stopped looking for work because they believed potential employers thought they were too old."

Much of the so-called change in attitudes to older job seekers has been rhetorical. Over the last six years we've had a 'Greek Chorus' of academics and special interest groups produce reports on the nature of age prejudice and its effects but little on how to solve the problem. If you want to generate discussion, ask an academic to write a report. If you want to kill off it completely, get them to write 50 reports.

CEO's and Managing Directors have been cocooned from the travesty perpetuated in their company's name by private recruiters. Business leaders would be shocked to learn that job candidates of experience and merit are routinely rejected by the recruiters they hire, simply because the candidates were born in the 1950s or 1960s.

Every Friday afternoon in the Department of Employment, I used to ring HR managers and recruiters across the country who had placed job ads requiring 'young', 'dynamic' and 'go-getter' staff. I reminded them of the Age Discrimination Act and to rewrite their ads to make them more inclusive. Most did.

For repeat offenders, I told them in unambiguous terms of the brand damage a court case may do to their business. Every single one of them complied. Whether they employed older workers is another matter.

The time has come to use the law as a battering ram and smash down the doors of ignorance. The late and great SMH journalist, Adele Horin, hit the nail on the head when she wrote on her blog just before she died:

Higher penalties for age discrimination, and more naming and shaming of errant firms are needed to jolt employers and recruitment firms into changing their ways. The 'nicely, nicely' approach hasn't worked.

The only way recalcitrant recruiters and HR managers will be bought to heel is by legal action by the victims. It will take guts but that's the price of equality.