Reply to guardian article -Just 6 years until my middle-aged ‘career decline’? But I’ve just got started!
This just shows that among all the ageism prevalent in most sectors of uk employers unfortunately the recruitment industry is one of the worst. The older workforce bring experience, knowledge but also empathy and support to younger under 25s new to the labour market and are needed more and more with the impact of Brexit and the opposition to workers imported from abroad.However the real problem and reason for there being less and less employees over 50 is not supply side that older people don't want to work when in fact there are today over 1 million desperate to work, but demand side-employers are full of ageist myths and prejudice.The reality, as even employers like McDonalds have found out, is if you have more older workers and an age diverse workforce you get higher productivity, more profits and less staff turnover.What a waste of talent and hope when by the last year of work before state pension there are under 50% in full time work. The desire and ability is there, witness the 1.2 million pensioners who still work, often part time and often in low paid zero hours contracts, but both poverty and the desire to remain active drive them on.In over 25 years of helping older people back to work, many of whom are labelled as not seeking work by the govt as they are not on the Job Centres ' books, I can say there are at least a million desperate to use their skills, knowledge and experience at work. When we have managed to persuade employers to take on older workers they are usually surprised at the benefits older people bring not least their ability to meet the needs of older 'silver' consumers, the largest and growing consumer age demographic. The work of age organisations like those at www.wiseage.org.uk has helped thousands of older people escape poverty and regain a sense of worth enabled many organisations to benefit and overcome labour market shortages. But we need a sea change in how employers , including the public sector and the recruitment industry perceive older working age people. If not productivity will be more difficult and many older people condemned to poverty and depression
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