My grandma lived to the ripe old age of 99, literally months shy of hitting the century. 

At less than half that age, I find it hard to fathom being here for that long. The experiences you clock up, the things you learn, the varied people you meet and have to navigate. 

When we would talk, both of us adults, me keen to listen, her keen to chat in her quiet, croaky voice, with her soft cheeky smile, I loved to hear about what she lived through. The introduction of electricity and running water to her home, the evolution of cars, and even later in life, airplane travel becoming common, computers and phones becoming necessities, the wonders of the internet (the latter of which she marvelled at when we skyped).

She told great stories about change, she let us in on her adventures to the city and to the beach for the first time as a young woman, she excitedly gossiped about the infamous murderer who lived on her road, and the hard work everyone had to do just to get by. 

I love to imagine her, younger, fitter, stronger, still smiling cheekily as she got about her day.

It’s thinking about everything she experienced that makes me wonder why we don’t embrace older people more in our workplaces. 

Sure, at 99 Gram was a good 30 years or more past wanting to sit at a desk, but 40 or 45 years younger, she would have been hard-pressed to find a workplace that would value her knowledge, skills and experience, even if she had the quals to match.

I recently spoke to a friend; she’s an ex-CEO, highly skilled, beloved still by her past teams, and from all accounts, she’s a bloody good leader. She has recognised qualifications, she upskilled frequently including a new degree in the last decade, keeps up with tech, is multi-lingual, and has extensive knowledge of how businesses survive pressure and struggle, and how they thrive.

She’s got everything an employer should want.

But… she can’t get a job because she’s hit her late 50s.

What’s age got to do with it?

Research shows my friend isn’t alone, in fact, from just a study of my own network, a lot of the people who I have worked with who are 10-20 years older than I am now, have faced the same struggle. Women more than men.

The Australian Human Rights Commission reports ‘almost 1 in 4 employers consider workers in their 50s ‘old’ and are reluctant to hire people over 50 despite skills shortages’.

The Australian HR Institute tells us only 56% are open to hiring workers aged 50–64, despite struggling to get the right people. 

A Voice of Experience study shared that 53% of Australians aged 50+ experienced age discrimination when applying for jobs. 

And when we talked to recruiters to find out what exactly the problem is, they cited two issues above and beyond anything else:

1. Employers think the candidate will retire soon, that they are just phoning in their last few years until they can punch the time card and hit the caravan track.
2. They see an age and, regardless of experience or resume, assume that the older candidate will not be as savvy or ‘up with the latest’ as their younger competitors.

    

Now, what’s interesting about the first one is if we look at the stats, people aged 45 to 64 remain in a job on average 6 years and 8 months. In contrast, those aged under 25 spend an average of just 1 year and six months in a job before they move on. People my age last on average 4 years. 

If we dive a little further, and look across an array of studies, we see productivity remains fairly flat regardless of age, though older workers are seen to be more reliable and better able to cope with stress than their younger colleagues. In a movement that is fundamentally changing workplaces, more young people are looking for flexibility, balance and reward. Older people are looking for a job.