Ageism is rife in Australia, with both younger and older workers being discriminated against, a new Human Rights Commission report has found.
The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), along with the Australian HR Institute (AHRI), released a report on Monday, Older and Younger Workers: What Do Employers Think?.
It is based on a survey of almost 150 HR professionals earlier this year.
The report found that only about half of those surveyed are open “to a large extent” to hiring workers aged over 50 or under 24 years old, with negative stereotypes impacting these age groups.
The research also found that nearly a quarter of the HR workers surveyed said they now classify any worker over the age of 50 as “older”, an increase from just 10 per cent in 2023.
Bias at both ends
While the majority of Australian businesses are facing difficulties in hiring and retaining talent, they are unwilling to hire workers in the 50+ or under 24 age groups, and this is impacting Australia’s overall productivity, the research found.
“In a tight labour market, there is a clear economic imperative to tap into the full potential of the available labour pool, and that means building inclusive practices that support employees at every stage of their careers,” AHRI CEO Sarah McCann-Bartlett said.
According to the survey, nearly half of the HR professionals surveyed were not open to hiring workers aged 50 to 64 years old “to a large extent”.
Less than a third of hirers were potentially willing to consider candidates aged over 65, while nearly a fifth said they wouldn’t hire this age group.
The ageism is even more evident when it comes to younger Australians, with just over 40 per cent of those surveyed open to recruiting jobseekers aged between 15 and 24 years old to a “large extent”.
“What we’re seeing is bias at both ends of the age range,” AHRC Age Discrimination Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald said.
“Sadly, this undermines diversity of thought and productivity.”
Fitzgerald said that this unwillingness to hire young and old workers is impacting the wider economy.
“Older and younger workers can be a real advantage for businesses,” Fitzgerald 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.
“Providing equal opportunity for people of all ages to remain engaged in meaningful work can enhance productivity, while also helping close skills gaps.”
Negative stereotypes abound
A potential reason for this ageism may be in stereotypes that the surveyed HR workers held about these age groups.
Older workers were rated highly when it came to loyalty, reliability and the ability to cope with stress, but very low when it came to their ability to use technology and career ambitions.
Just 1 per cent of respondents said that older workers had better tech skills, and less than 10 per cent said they had higher energy levels.
In contrast, younger workers were rated comparatively lower for reliability, loyalty and ability to cope with stress.
The report also found that nearly three-quarters of the HR executives were offering flexible working arrangements as a recruitment strategy to support more age-diverse hirings, up from less than 50 per cent four years ago.
“If we want to fill our skills gaps and improve productivity, we need to shift from age-based assumptions to evidence-based strategies,” McCann-Bartlett said.
“That means designing jobs that keep people engaged across the lifecycle, 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.”
A World Health Organisation study from 2021 found that one in two people around the world hold ageist attitudes, and that the economy could grow by $62 billion annually if just 5 per cent more people aged over 55 years were employed.
