Age discrimination in the labour market

Judy Higgins is one of the owners of OlderWorkers.com.au and grapples every day with the employment challenges of over 60s.  She is at the forefront of the driving force to provide more skills, roles and support to build respect for Seniors in the workplace.  Today she reflects on age discrimination and how severely it is affecting older workers.  Have you been discriminated against for your age in seeking out or holding onto a job?   Tell us your story today.   

The major demographic change in Australia caused by the  large cohort of ‘baby boomers’ reaching the traditional age of retirement  has significant implications for the labour market.  The greater labour market involvement  of mature age Australians can enhance workplaces with additional skills, experience and mentoring abilities, but importantly providing income support for individuals ‘ standard of living and quality of life.  

However, a potential barrier to mature age employment is age discrimination which is defined by the Australian Human Rights Commission as ‘when a person is treated less favourably than another person a similar situation, because of their age’. (AHRC 2013).

Direct age discrimination can occur when an older person is told directly that they are too old for the job.  Indirect discrimination can however be more subtle and is more common, such as when employers use language describing older workers and job applicants as being unable to fit into the current work team, being overqualified, lacking up-to-date skills, being slow or unwilling to learn or having health or fitness concerns even though these are not a major requirements of the job.

A recent report by the National Seniors Productive Ageing Centre “Age Discrimination in the Labour Market: Experiences and Perceptions of Mature Age Australians” June 2013 has surveyed Australians  aged 45 to 74 years of age and used a range of indicators to measure the experiences and perceptions of mature age people of age discrimination.  In particular, it gathered information on employment discrimination related to age, as well as participants’ employment status, and their demographic and socio-economic characteristics.  A total of 3,007 respondents were interviewed between November 2011 and January 2012.   Some of the results were surprising, some not at all.

16% of people looking for a job in the past five years stated they had been directly told they were too old for the job.

13% of people who had worked in the past five years reported they had experienced some form of work place exclusion attributed to age discrimination , with the most common form being insulting jokes or comments.

A significant proportion of people who reported age-attributed work place exclusion stated that it influenced their desire to work (60% of the non-employed) and work more hours (29% of currently employed people).

36% who looked for a job in the past five years reported experiencing some form of exclusion during the job search process, and attributed it to age. This is almost three times the proportion reported for workplace exclusion.  The most common types of exclusion were passed over for a job interview when qualified for that job and unsuccessful at the job interview when qualified for that job.

Reported job search exclusion attributed to age is highest for low income earners (53% of people earning less than $20,000 compared to 24% of ;people earning more than $65,000)  This age-attributed job search exclusion  was also higher for those with backgrounds in the construction, manufacturing and mining industries compared with the government/education and wholesale/retail trade sectors.   Further, the report states that 67% of people who have worked in the past five years agree or strongly agree that age discrimination is an issue in the workplace in Australia.

Perceptions  of age discrimination during job search were even higher (83% of people who have looked for a job in the past 5 years agree or strongly agree).   Not unsurprisingly perceptions of age discrimination are also shown to have affected people’s desire to work.  31% of retired people cited that being considered too old by employers was either a somewhat or very important reason for them to being retired.  Also, approximately half of discouraged workers ( i.e who are not employed but not  retired, who want to work but are not looking ) stated  that being  considered  too old by employers was either  a somewhat or very important reason for them not looking for work.

The findings of this report show a perception amongst the majority of mature age people that age discrimination is an important issue in the labour market.  Additionally, many people believe they are considered too old by employers, which also affected the desire of significant numbers of both retired and discouraged workers to find employment.

Overall, about three quarters of mature age people in the Australian labour market reported either having experienced age discrimination or agreed it was an issue.   For a more complete picture of age discrimination in the Australian labour market, it is necessary to consider the perspectives of Australian employers.  The 2010 DEEWR Survey of Employers provided such information.

This study found that the overall perceptions of employers were positive; most reported no challenges with employing mature age workers.   The minority who did report some challenges indicated that mature age workers ‘may lack qualifications/skills’, are ‘less productive/slower/may require help’, and ‘not suited to the type of work we do’.  Despite the majority of employers’ positive attitude to older workers, you should not assume that age discrimination is not present in these workplaces.   A clear finding from this DEEWR report is that employers with a written mature age policy  are far better placed to recruit and retain older workers.

There are some limitations to the survey of barriers that need to be considered, however despite these drawbacks the survey has provided nationally representative data with a large sample size, using a number of different measures of age discrimination and a wide array of socio-economic and demographic variables.   Reports such as these are valuable in reinforcing the issues and barriers facing older workers and older jobseekers.  No matter what colour of government wins the next Federal election, if they are to address economic issues the discrimination of older Australians in the job market and the workforce must be addressed.