AUSTRALIA’S refusal to give older people looking for work a fair go is rapidly sending the nation bankrupt.
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The annual cost of providing the aged pension to our older citizens is tipped to hit $51 billion in the 2020 federal budget.
For a country that has experienced a decade of budget deficits and is deep in debt, this is quite simply unsustainable.
But not only is it unsustainable, it is also unconscionable.
Why is there such a reluctance to give people with experience, knowledge and desire a shot at a job?
The result of this mindset is the emergence of a new demographic; those who are too young to retire, but too old to get a job.
Typically aged between 45 and 65 years, these are people who are often embarking on a second career after years of steady employment.
They have families to support, mortgages to pay and retirements to fund.
But they suddenly find themselves unable to crack the job market, consistently losing out to younger, less experienced candidates.
A recent study found one-in-five people receiving Newstart allowance for a period of a year or more were over the age of 50.
Reducing their potential to become self-funded retirees, it increases the likelihood they will be reliant on the aged pension in their latter years.
If this worrying trend has come about because older Australians do not have the skills to re-enter the workforce, then the government must make it easier for them to re-skill. If it is born out of ageism, it is up to employers to reassess their prejudices.
Dubbo and the region fare better in the employment of older workers with figures showing the proportion of residents aged between 55 and 64 who were engaged in the workforce was greater than 65 per cent. But, that figure drops significantly in some other Orana centres.
Comforting news for older workers is also in a survey being conducted by Regional Development Australia Orana, which has so far found over half of businesses say they are likely or very likely to hire older people.
But, there are still many experienced people who fail to get work in the region because of their age. The big picture, the annual pension bill, is highly alarming.
Failure to act, particularly in country areas where the population is ageing more quickly than in the cities, will cripple our regional economies.