Age discrimination can often affect employability.  Flexi Personnel’s Recruitment Consultants speak with young jobseekers every day who find it challenging to secure a job interview, let alone a job, due to lack of experience. Most employers want to recruit only the most experienced and productive employees they can attract. However, older workers are also finding it challenging on the open labour market.

In the Australian Human Rights Commission’s (AHRC) report titled Fact or Fiction? Stereotypes of older Australians, 2013, found that 1 in 10 businesses had an age limit for potential employees and if above this, they will no t recruit regardless of skill or experience, the average age being 50 years.

The AHRC’s National Prevalence Survey of Age Discrimination in the Workplace Report 2015 found that age discrimination is more likely to be experienced by Australians aged between 55 and 64 years old. One in five (20%) Australians aged 65 years and older experienced discrimination in the workplace or on the open labour market as opposed to a third of those aged between 55 and 59 (32%) and 3 in 10 of those aged between 60 and 64 (31%). The research also confirmed anecdotal evidence that age discrimination is most commonly experienced when older people are out of a job and looking for paid work. Nearly 3 in 5 (58%) of those who looked for paid work were a target of discrimination because of their age.

When seeking employees in the open labour market, employers take into account a candidate’s age relative to their skills. Common assumptions that can be made include lack of skills for younger applicants and in the case of mature workers, skills may not be ‘up-to-date’ especially with technology; therefore deeming these applicants as less competitive.

An employment assessment performed by one of our Human Resources professionals can provide an expert recruitment opinion on your clients’ current work capacity, their realistic employment prospects into suitable employment and/or gaining employment in the open labour market, including age and skill relevance, subsequent to an injury.

If you would like further information on this topic, or would you like further information about the reports that Flexi Personal’s Employment Assessment team can provide, please contact Katherine Rintoule on 93609722 or find out more at the Employment Assessment team website.