Old is the New Young
As lifespans push out further and people want to work longer, society needs to transform to erradicate ageism when it comes to opportunity
No one needs a set of stats in some dry business article to tell them that as average lifespans trend upwards, the number of people wanting to stay in the workforce longer is following the same trend.
(But if you’re a numbers geek, like me, check out these 2017 figures produced by some economic wonks at the RBA to see this borne out in the data.)
Best example?
Yes, you know what I’m talking about, you sausage-sizzle-loving hardware-geek Aussie types, BUNNINGS!
(For non-Aussie readers, think Home Depot, HomeBase, Komeri, ADEO, OBI etc.)
Walk into any Bunnings store at any time and the mix of staff across every demographic imaginable is beyond broad, but there is also this wonderful weighting towards older workers.
And this is not just imagined — it’s a thing.
Governments are getting behind this. In Australia, the Restart Programme was allocated a half a billion AUD over four years in the 2014–15 Federal budget, albeit as a sweetener given the retirement age in Australia has been pushed out to 67, with talk that it will eventually hit 70. Unfortunately, while the plan has great intentions (hoping to secure work for 32,000 mature-age job seekers each year), the last set of stats I could find (from 2017) indicate some but limited success, with only roughly 16,000 finding their way into employment thanks to the plan.
What this points to is the wider problem of ageism in the workforce. This is not anything new, and some might even argue it’s just part of the natural order of things whereby older workers need to eventually make way for the new. No arguments there. Young people need to feel optimistic and encouraged to do the best they can throughout their schooling so that their hard work has an eventual payoff in the form of employment. But as tech disruption rips through a wide range of sectors of the world economy, many fear huge job losses, entire industries and their associated skillsets vanishing and a burden being placed onto workers to constantly retrain as industries disappear or transform under them.
Older workers are at an instant disadvantage here as new generations of younger people grow up with disruption part of life — one estimate based on a survey of 18–29-year-olds found that a 15-year-old today will experience a “portfolio career”, having up to 17 jobs over five careers throughout their working life.
What a massive gearshift from the “gold-watch-on-retirement” days when workers stayed in the same career for 40 odd years, often even in the same company.
There is an upside. Even as entirely new industries are born from disruption, providing opportunities for young workers to train and move straight into new roles or industries and older workers to retrain and do the same, tech also offers opportunities for older workers to stay in the workforce longer as it removes the burden of physically-taxing roles. However, as a society, and in particular the business community and government, we must put more time, effort and money into finding the balance between continuing to offer opportunities for young workers to kick off one of their five careers and to retain older workers who still have such incredible skills, ideas and talent to offer.
A range of societal gear shifts, big and small, will need to occur to ensure this happens. On a more practical micro level, shifting some of the volunteer sector into paid work might be a job creation avenue, albeit with a corresponding financial cost, as while many do this kind of work out of goodwill, there is no reason payment could not be made to professionalise parts of this sector.
Another micro shift would be improving tax incentives for the gig economy or those willing to juggle several part-time jobs or be more open to taking shorter-term contracts to fill seasonal gaps in certain industries as a compensation for the decline in job security and moving into more risky parts of the economy.
With risk, comes reward
At themacro level, much larger shifts will also need to occur.
OK, get ready for a minor soapbox moment…
Rampant widespread consumerism and a FOMO culture that partly stems from the prevalence of social media platforms has led to an at-times ugly hunger for bigger, better and more “things”, meaning we need to earn a corresponding higher income so we can have those things…which leads to a chicken and egg situation where the push for higher incomes to improve living standards, leads to higher prices…etc etc…
If we can somehow slow down this maelstrom of rampant consumer hunger, leading to people needing/wanting less things, happier to make do, using things for longer, wasting less etc, ideas such as the 4-day working week being bandied around and actually trialled in some workplaces at the moment might be implemented with a corresponding reduction in wages but leading to a higher demand for workers to fill the gaps.
I’m the first to admit this sounds like pie-in-the-sky stuff and nigh impossible to bring off.
I can also hear the howls of “socialist claptrap” or “I should be allowed to earn and have as much as I want” etc etc.
But we do need to at least start a dialogue about some broader shifts in the way we approach life, not just as workers but also as humans.
We’re all in this together, young, old and in-between.
And, regardless of age, everyone should have the opportunity to contribute their labour to the workforce for as long as they are able because old is the new young and no one can escape the passing of the years.
Oh, except for Elon Musk of course.
That dude is just gonna live and work forever I reckon.
More power (most likely from Tesla batteries) to him.
