Employers choosing migrants over older Australians

The ABC has published a report bemoaning that “ageism is rife in Australian workplaces”, where many older Australians are being shunned for jobs in favour of younger workers:

A recent survey of 5000 people over 50 by Australian Seniors found many older people want to participate in the workforce, but they are not being given opportunities:

• Eighty-nine per cent said ageism is prevalent in the workforce
• Close to one in four believe they were turned down for a job based solely on their age
• More than two in five did not even bother applying for a job because they felt their chances were low because they are older

As Australia recovers from COVID, the director of job recruitment agency Seeking Seniors says employers should not overlook this cohort of experienced and loyal employees.

“Our economy is not going to get out of this ravaged state unless we alter our standards and employ Australia’s over 50s,” Amanda Mackean said.

“Having come up against age discrimination first-hand during my career, I’m hopeful that a wider understanding of the positive contributions over 50s bring to the workforce, will help thousands of seniors facing ageism.”

A LinkedIn survey published last year also found that 44% of baby-boomers believed that their job applications were being rejected largely due to their age:

…a new report adds to the mounting evidence of an Australian ageism crisis.

Conducted by professional networking site, LinkedIn, the survey of 1025 Australians revealed just under one in two baby boomers (44 per cent) believe their age is the main reason for employers rejecting their job applications…

Indeed APAC economist Callam Pickering said such stigmatisation spelled bad news for the entire workforce…

Australia’s Human Rights Commission found in a 2015 survey that 27 per cent of older Australians had faced workplace discrimination – often during the hiring process.

A third of that group consequently went into early retirement…

LinkedIn’s survey comes just months after Mr Frydenberg offended large swathes of older Australians by saying they must learn new skills and delay retirement as Australia’s ageing population was putting pressure on the budget…

The latest Intergenerational Report (IGR) argued that Australia needed to run a mass immigration program to mitigate the impacts from an ageing population.

The IGR outlined how 30 years ago, for each person aged over 65, there were 6.6 people of “working age”. Today, there are four working age people and by 2060-61, there will only be 2.7 for each person aged over 65. In other words, the presumption is that the economy cannot afford an ageing population.

The IGR was also based on one big lie, since it presumed that someone only works and pays taxes if they are aged between 15-64 years of age. Based on this assumption, you’d be led to believe that workforce participation had gone down in the last 30 years, when in fact the employment-to-population ratio hit its highest level on record in July 2021 prior to the latest lockdown:

In any event, concerns around mitigating an ageing population can be addressed by businesses employing and retraining older workers instead of plucking a migrant at every opportunity.

According to research from Professor Peter McDonald from Melbourne University, migrants took 83% of jobs created between 2011 and 2016:

From July 2011 to July 2016, employment in Australia increased by 738,800. Immigrants accounted for 613,400 of the total increase…

Migration has had a very large effect on the age structure of employment with most new immigrant workers (595,300) being under 55 years.

The Treasury’s own immigration propaganda report, Shaping a Nation, also explicitly acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of Australia’s jobs growth went to migrants between 2011 and 2016, thus keeping unemployment elevated:

Recent migrants accounted for two-thirds (64.5 per cent) of the approximately 850,000 net jobs created in the past five years. For full-time employment, the impact is even more pronounced, with recent migrants accounting for 72.4 per cent of new jobs created.

Australia will never achieve ‘full employment’ or solid wage growth while it continues to import migrant workers in bulk. And older Australians will continue to get overlooked for jobs in favour of cheaper, younger migrants.

An ‘Australian first’ policy is desperately needed to absorb the chronic labour market slack and lift wage growth.