Older, unskilled men more likely to be jobless
Manual workers, people with low qualifications and males are most at risk of leaving the workforce because of illness, injury and disability, according to new research released yesterday.
Michael O’Neill, National Seniors chief executive, says discovering the barriers to mature age employment is important at a time when government is encouraging people to work longer.
The National Seniors Productive Ageing Centre (NSPAC) report, Disengagement of mature age people from the labour force, investigated the reasons why older people ceased employment, which groups were most at risk of leaving the workforce and their financial outcomes post employment.
The report found an unemployed person aged 50 to 69 years, who did not have a non school qualification and who were previously employed in a manual occupation, had a 52% likelihood to have ceased their last job because of illness, injury or disability.
In comparison, people with both high school and non-school qualifications, and who previously had a non-manual job, had only a 23% likelihood to have left their last job because of the same three factors.
In addition, most people who had been unemployed for at least 12 months relied on a government pension or allowance as their primary source of income.
Michael O’Neill, National Seniors chief executive, said discovering the barriers to mature age employment was important at a time when government is encouraging people to work longer and become more self sufficient in retirement.
“The government has introduced a number of policy interventions to promote longer working lives, such as wage subsidies and gradually increasing the Age Pension age,” Mr O’Neill said.
“But without determining the barriers to working longer there is likely to be a significant number of older people out of work in the future.”
He added further investment in training was required to help prevent high risk groups becoming unemployed.
“People in manual occupations who are most at risk of leaving the workforce at an early age would benefit most from any formal qualifications or retraining opportunities,” Mr O’Neill said.
“Investment in training and focusing on the skills of these people at an earlier age would prevent them being left on the scrapheap.”
About one half of males who have been out of work for at least 12 months, whose last job was in a manual occupation and who were retrenched, received the Disability Support Pension (DSP), the report found.
“This result is consistent with the finding that the rise in women’s eligibility age for the Age Pension led to an increase in enrolment in the DSP, effectively providing an alternative source of retirement income,” Mr O’Neill added.
Twelve per cent of people left their last job because they were retrenched, dismissed or there was no work available; 23% left because they had reached retirement age and 8% of people left because of caring responsibilities.
“The report’s findings underline the difficulties many mature age people experience while trying to remain in physically demanding manual occupations at an age where such roles may not be suitable for their physical capabilities.
“There remains a lot of scope for employers to modify the type of work and job tasks to facilitate people with health issues to stay in the workplace for longer.”
