People aged 45 and over facing persistent ageism in the workforce worldwide
Midcareer workers worldwide face high unemployment and job entry barriers, survey finds.
Older, midcareer workers bring both experience and an established track record to the workplace. However, they also make up the majority of the long-term unemployed in many countries and face growing barriers to finding good jobs.
The nonprofit organization Generation recently conducted a global survey of the challenges facing older workers.
“The key insight from our research is that midcareer individuals across the world are finding it harder to get jobs, despite rising calls to address inequality and advance social justice,” the survey report said. “Our data confirm and quantify the dark anecdotal story captured in today’s headlines: People aged 45-plus face persistent and rising pressure in the global job market. They are unemployed for much longer than the median, and their age is indeed one of the greatest barriers to their finding a job.”
Those from underrepresented communities face even greater barriers and engage in 53 percent more interviews to get a job offer.
“Our research also confirms that hiring managers have a strong perception bias against 45-plus job candidates,” the report said. “They believe that members of this age cohort have poor skills and low adaptability.”
Among the findings:
- Age 45-plus individuals make up a high share of the long-term unemployed.
- Hiring managers have a negative view of 45-plus jobseekers, even though employers highly rate the job performance of those they do hire.
- Age 45-plus individuals with the greatest need for training are the most hesitant to pursue it.
- Job requirements have gone up, and those from underrepresented communities work much harder to get a job offer.
- Despite national differences, the challenges and experience of age 45-plus individuals are global, displaying striking consistency around the world.
Other findings point to deepening problems ahead. One warning light is that people aged 45-plus who did manage to switch careers successfully express high dissatisfaction with the quality of their entry-level jobs, even as employers, especially in the booming tech sector, keep raising the qualification bar on those very jobs.
Another is that the 45-plus individuals who need training the most to get a job are the most hesitant to pursue it. By contrast, 45-plus individuals who have successfully switched professions believe training has been central to their ability to do so, and employers concur.
One key insight is positive. Yes, hiring managers express bias against 45-plus individuals. But those very same employers also acknowledge that, once they hire people over 45, those workers perform on the job just as well as or even better than their peers who are a decade younger.
“In a world in which decisions are made on the basis of fact, the employment prospects of 45-plus individuals should be much better than they are today,” the report said. “Critically, these core insights are universal across all seven countries in our survey, despite their very different circumstances.”
Research confirms that older workers are capable of tremendous adaptability in switching careers and mastering new roles, but it also provides a reminder that they cannot meet all their challenges alone. As 45-plus individuals continue to seek work in a world where retirement ages are being pushed up by higher life expectancies and inadequate savings, they need employers and policymakers to take steps to counter ageism.
Researchers made four recommendations to address the problems they uncovered:
- National governments and global multilaterals can publish short- and long-term unemployment statistics with narrower age brackets.
- Practitioners and policymakers can link training programs directly to employment opportunities and provide stipends to support 45-plus individuals who are hesitant to train.
- Employers can change hiring practices to get a clearer view of potential 45-plus candidate talent.
- Employers can rethink current approaches to make it easier to fill new and revamped roles with existing 45-plus employees instead of relying solely on new hires.
“Our collective response will determine whether business and society rise to meet the world’s midcareer moment,” the report concluded. “Older workers are our friends, neighbors and parents. Do we seize the compelling opportunity they offer or abandon them to lives of quiet desperation and long-term unemployment?”
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