Older workers find it hardest to gain employment - survey

5.00 pm

Unemployed New Zealanders over 45 have just a 50 per cent chance of finding work despite being over a decade away from retirement, a new survey shows.

Massey University research found 45 per cent of job-seekers over 45 were long-term unemployed who had been looking for work for more than six months, and sometimes more than five years.

The study involved 954 40-plus people who were listed with the Mature Employment Service in Whangarei, Palmerston North, Christchurch and Invercargill.

After six months out of work the older job-seekers become increasingly frustrated, insecure and depressed.

The study found these feelings could be caused by the stigma of unemployment in a nation where a strong work ethic was admired

Many of the respondents blamed their difficulty in finding work on ageism, and said they were often perceived as being more expensive to hire than their younger counterparts.

Younger managers were threatened by the experience of mature job seekers and that, too, affected their chances of securing work, the study found.

Although many of those surveyed placed high importance on upskilling, particularly in the area of computers, they found it did not help provide them with employment.

Professor Judy McGregor and researcher Lance Gray found that in the first six months of job-seeking older workers, particularly those who were made redundant, were as vigorous in their efforts to find a job as any other age group.

It also found the first four to six months of job-seeking were critical to the success of mature job-seekers re-entering the labour market.

There was a roughly even gender split in those surveyed, with neither sex finding it easier to secure employment despite there being very different reasons for men and women looking for work at a mature age.

Generally, mature women were returning to the workforce from family responsibilities and men were looking for work after being made redundant.

- NZPA

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