Ageism growing with Australian employers now classifying workers over 50 as ‘older’

Almost one quarter of employers now classify workers aged 51 to 55 years as “older”, with fresh data suggesting companies are sidelining experienced professionals amid persistent labour shortages.

This view from recruiters increased to 24 per cent — up from 10 per cent in 2023, according to a report released by the Australian HR Institute and the Australian Human Rights Commission on Monday.

Despite more than half of the 138 HR officer respondents reporting hard-to-fill vacancies, just 56 per cent stated they were open to hiring workers aged 50 to 64 “to a large extent”.

This drops to 28 per cent for those 65 and over, while 18 per cent say they won’t hire this age group.

The findings were also bleak at the other end of the spectrum, with just 41 per cent open to hiring jobseekers aged 15 to 24 “to a large extent”.

The report comes as Treasurer Jim Chalmers prepares to hold an economic reform roundtable in Canberra next month in a bid to jump-start Australia’s flagging levels of productivity.

Australia’s Age Discrimination Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald said the latest findings highlighted the need for sustained action against ageism.

“Older and younger workers can be a real advantage for businesses,” Mr Fitzgerald, a former Productivity Commissioner, said.

“Age-diverse teams bring different life experiences to the table and are better at solving problems.

“Employers need to support inclusive workplaces, where competency isn’t assessed against age or career stage.”

AHRI chief executive Sarah McCann-Bartlett said there was a clear economic imperative to tap into the full potential of the available labour pool amid skills shortages.

“If we want to fill our skills gaps and improve productivity, we need to shift from age-based assumptions to evidence-based strategies,” she said.

“That means designing jobs that keep people engaged across the life cycle, using emerging techniques to attract and retain different generations and building workplace cultures where no one is written off because of the year they were born.”

The report made 18 recommendations in recruitment, training, workplace inclusivity, and health and wellbeing initiatives.

Among them were calls for age-neutral language in job ads to ensure inclusivity and appeal to a diverse range of applicants, career-transition support for employees in their mid-late careers, as well as cross-generational mentoring where employees of different ages can learn from each other’s skills.

It comes as Woolworths, in its submission to the Productivity Commission’s review, expressed interest in exploring the Federal Government’s concept of a digital “skills passport” to help the supermarket giant identify and build a pipeline of workers to fill its high-tech warehouses.

Woolworths is Australia’s biggest private sector employer, with more than 178,000 staff across its supermarkets and discount department store Big W.