KEY POINTS:
Genevieve Walker, a 51-year-old divorced Auckland mother with a grown-up daughter, was a highly competent, valued office manager for a local company until she was made redundant over a year ago. Since then she has been job hunting and doing a bit of temping, and would like nothing better than to have a nine-to-five job so she can start saving for her retirement.
"I was working for quite a long time before I got made redundant. I never thought that finding another job would be so hard," she says.
Why is she having so much trouble finding a position? The softly spoken woman puts it down to her age. Her skills are up to date, and her experience cannot be doubted.
She often makes it to the interview stage - she does not indicate her age on her CV, as advised - but once the prospective employers meets her, they immediately put her on the back foot. Some will come straight out and ask how old she is, even though it is illegal. And in practically every case the manager doing the interviewing is younger than she is.
Walker knows other men and women her age who are having the same problems in finding permanent work, despite their experience.
"It is not an older worker-friendly environment any more, they want the younger ones," Walker says.
She thinks that the young people who interview her might feel threatened by her experience.
"I'm probably more qualified than them," she says.
The 51-year-old has tried every avenue she can think of in her search for work, from recruitment agencies to local community contacts. The agencies, largely populated by young consultants, are probably ageist as well, she suspects. "Once you are on their books, they don't seem that keen to want to help. Once again, they are looking after the younger ones."
Walker maintains that she would be a better bet as an employee than a Generation Y candidate. "An older person is more likely to stay in the job and be more loyal to the employer, but they don't seem to comprehend that."
Walker's experience is disturbingly common, according to research out last week from the Human Rights Commission.
It commissioned the University of Auckland Business School to make similar written applications for 75 advertised positions. The pretend applicants were in three age bands - 25 plus, 40 plus and 55 plus. The 25-year-olds were six to 12 times more likely to be shortlisted than the 55-year-olds for human resource positions, and six to 10 times more likely to make the final cut for sales positions.
Older applicants were thought to be "set in their ways", while the youngest applicants were seen as "trainable", easy to "get up to speed" and "go-getters".
One employer responded to three similar applicants, differentiated only by age, in the following ways: the youngest was invited in for a chat to see if they wanted to train for the post; the middle-aged candidate was told his experience was not relevant; and the 55-year-old candidate was told his qualifications didn't meet the requirements of the company, even though no qualifications had been specified.
The trend is all the more worrying, as it comes on the back of the latest Department of Labour quarterly outlook showing that tight labour market conditions are expected to continue into the foreseeable future.
The department is predicting a slight rise in unemployment in the next two years, but only up to around 4.4 per cent, meaning employers will still face a challenge in finding appropriately skilled workers. So not hiring on the basis of age is not only illegal, it is bad business, says Auckland University's Professor Marie Wilson. A co-researcher on the HRC report, she says: "I don't think I am surprised. Having stereotypes is a big part of what we do every day."
If people in their 50s are not able to find work, this will have big implications for the retirement business, which relies on people staying in jobs until they are 65, Wilson says.
Recruitment agencies will be key in helping to turn around employers' attitudes, which the Department of Labour says must change in order to deal with the ongoing skills shortage.
Chief executive James Buwalda says businesses need to become more adaptable all round in terms of who they hire, work practices and upskilling people.
"There are opportunities for the interests of older workers and the needs of our workplaces to be matched better than they are at the moment. And some of that is about flexibility, some of that is about skills."
Around 71 per cent of 55-64 year old workers are in the workforce in this country, a figure which actually compares favourably to other OECD countries - notably to Australia, where the participation rate is just 55.5 per cent. But Buwalda says there is still a lot of room for improvement.
"To miss out on the opportunity that this pool of older workers represents would be a loss for everybody." He adds that no central policy will fix the situation - employers are going to have to take a good look at themselves.
Kim Smith, senior consultant at financial recruitment company Robert Half, says age discrimination is the only area where employers are open about their feelings. They are less likely to talk about not wanting to hire certain nationalities.
"They will say they don't want anybody over 45. They might not be as direct as that - they might say 'We want someone younger, very energetic, very dynamic'." Dynamic means young, Smith says.
She confirms that Robert Half has people in their 50s on their books looking for work. A former financial controller has been working as a management accountant, a significant step backward, but he couldn't find another role as a financial controller.
Smith says age discrimination is not just happening in New Zealand, it is a worldwide problem. "The reasons are multiple. Some employers are afraid that the person may be taking a step down as an interim move, while they wait for the job they really want."
But these are not interim people. "What they want to do is go to work, do a great job, earn a decent wage and go home."
Smith agrees with Walker that the interviewer can be thrown if the interviewee is more qualified than they are.
"They say, 'They could do my job. I'm not hiring somebody who has more experience than me'. They are stepping over a class of employee that can be very loyal. They are not so concerned about their own accomplishments, they like to mentor. Generation Y and baby-boomers have a lot in common and can relate well."
Smith advises older job applicants to put the last 10 years of their experience on their CVs but not to give away that they've been in the work-force for 30 years.
"You don't want to mislead, but you don't want it up in neon lights," she says.
The findings of the Human Rights Commission research have come as a shock to those working in the labour industry who thought things had improved. "It blew out of the water my belief that because of talent scarcity, finding a new job should not be a problem if you are over 50," says career coach Kaye Avery. The director of Career & Transition Consulting has been involved in helping a number of laid-off staff from large New Zealand companies in the past few years.
"Eight years ago, it was a problem, and it did seem to get a bit better. Companies did broaden their minds."
Avery thinks the working environment today can be very demanding, particularly for staff in the larger corporates. "They have a more demanding pace, and the flipside is, do people in their 50s want to be in that kind of environment? When you are in your 50s, you want to work somewhere where maturity is valued, that's the key," she says.
Certain industries are more open-minded than others. While health boards are considered broad-minded, the finance industry is said to be less so. "We have clients who ask for young people and the reverse," says Richard Manthel, managing director of Robert Walters, the financial recruitment agency.
"It is fair to say that there are jobs for everybody at every age group. Someone who is very ambitious, whether they are young or old, will be looked at for their attitude.
"People look at positivity. People who don't have a good attitude, whether they are younger or older, will not fare well," he says.
"You have to make sure that the skills are relevant to the jobs they are applying for. If they are not, say you are happy to retrain, be positive, let the 'work harder' ethic come through," he advises.
Manthel tells people to write their CVs differently for every job. He says the latest skills are the most important. "You want to be seen as a like for like."
Meanwhile, recruitment companies are trying to talk their clients into the flexible behaviours Buwalda says they need to adopt.
Workers in their 50s and 60s are often seeking more flexible hours, for instance a four-day week or a job-share scenario, says Graeme Sandri, Wellington general manager of executive search company Momentum.
"It's about how we can leverage off this work force. In a tight labour market, employers need to think differently about how they hire. It is up to us to help them get through that process by coming up with alternatives," he says.
One of the top accountancy firms recently advertised for a tax accountant and received no applications. When in desperation they changed the job and made it part time, they received 110 applications, Sandri says.
One area that can definitely be a hurdle when hiring older people is technology. "That's sometimes a struggle for older workers, while Generation Y is picking it up with ease," Sandri says.
Buwalda's answer is that employers will need to consider upskilling people, and this may come as part of a wider look at their work practices and how they use technology.
Meanwhile, despite the skills shortage, the job market continues to be tough for anyone over 40.
"If I were 55, I would not be quitting my job unless I had another [lined up]," Professor Wilson says.
