Shortage doesn’t spell easy job hunts for older workers
When employment counsellor Linda Zaluska moved to Halifax last summer, she expected her job search to be a breeze.
She saw many openings, which she took to be a result of the numbers of younger people leaving the Maritimes for better-paying jobs elsewhere. And the unemployment rate in the Halifax region at the end of the year was approaching the 2000 low of 6.2 per cent.
But her job search wasn’t easy. “I was overqualified for everything. It was a challenge,” said Zaluska. At times, she got the sense the people interviewing her saw her as a threat, particularly younger workers.
When she found a six-month gig running a job search program for older workers at the Opportunity Place, a not-for-profit employment centre in Lower Sackville, just outside of Halifax, she saw other jobseekers in their late 50s and 60s faced with similar difficulties. Despite all the rumbling about employers needing to attract and retain older workers in the face of a coming retirement wave, these people weren’t able to find jobs.
Their experience raises a question: Is there a mismatch between older workers looking for a job and the workers employers need to retain?
Part of the answer is that the real staffing shortage is still a few years away, said Roger Sauvé, a demographic analyst based in Sooke, B.C. The big push to keep older people working will come, but probably not for another 10 years, he said.
The other part of the answer is the types of older people looking for jobs. Citing retirement trends over the last 10 years, Sauvé noted that workers with a high income and a high level of education have tended to be the first to retire. Looking at Statistics Canada data for the period between 1996 and 2000, he noted the median age of retirement was 58.7 among university degree holders, 60.8 among those with post-secondary education, including colleges and technical schools, 60.3 among high school grads and 64.4 among workers with less than high school education.
“Generally, people work because they have to, even if they enjoy it,” said Sauvé.
And people will have to work longer, said Henri-Paul Rouseau, president and chief executive officer of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which manages public and private pension and insurance plans in Quebec. He pointed to the level of pension underfunding (affecting more than half of defined benefit plans at the end of 2004, according to the Association of Canadian Pension Managers) and the declining share of Canadians covered by pension plans (34 per cent in 2003, down from 44 per cent in 1992, according to actuary Malcolm Hamilton). In a speech to pension managers earlier this year, Rousseau cited Financial Analysts Journal authors Robert Arnott and Anne Casscells who wrote: “A combination of poor investment returns and rising prices for goods and services can accomplish the same thing as boosting retirement (age) by fiat, albeit without giving advance warning to would-be retirees.”
Attitudes towards retirement are starting to change, according to The Future of Retirement: What the World Wants, compiled by HSBC, a London-based bank. Based on answers submitted by 21,000 individuals across the globe — 1,000 in Canada — the survey found only 10 per cent of Canadian respondents said people should retire at 65. About half said people should retire when they want to, about a quarter said when they can afford to and the remaining 13 per cent said when they could no longer do the job.
However, when asked when people should retire, the average age forwarded by Canadian respondents was 62.2 for men and 60.6 for women. When asked what would be the most important reason for working past the traditional age of retirement, financial need came in on top with 24 per cent of respondents.
The survey also supports Sauvé’s assertion that some employers aren’t yet feeling an acute need. Although 74 per cent of surveyed employers said they try to retain older workers with hard-to-replace skills and 77 per cent said they encouraged older workers to keep working, only 36 per cent said they recruit older workers and 14 per cent even encourage older workers to retire early.
Asked why they’re not doing more to attract or retain older workers, 38 per cent of Canadian employers said this was not an urgent issue, 33 per cent said there was no need, 32 per cent said the work is too physical for people past a certain age and 29 per cent said older workers are more expensive.
Employers surveyed also expressed some reservations about this older age group’s technological aptitude and their ability to learn.
In Zaluska’s experience, discrimination plays a barrier, as do outdated skills. Among the clients she helped, many didn’t have computer experience. However, they had a lifetime of well-honed work ethics.
“I would like to see employers open up more and be more receptive to older workers, because they are reliable, dependable, and they’re life-long learners,” she said.
She saw many openings, which she took to be a result of the numbers of younger people leaving the Maritimes for better-paying jobs elsewhere. And the unemployment rate in the Halifax region at the end of the year was approaching the 2000 low of 6.2 per cent.
But her job search wasn’t easy. “I was overqualified for everything. It was a challenge,” said Zaluska. At times, she got the sense the people interviewing her saw her as a threat, particularly younger workers.
When she found a six-month gig running a job search program for older workers at the Opportunity Place, a not-for-profit employment centre in Lower Sackville, just outside of Halifax, she saw other jobseekers in their late 50s and 60s faced with similar difficulties. Despite all the rumbling about employers needing to attract and retain older workers in the face of a coming retirement wave, these people weren’t able to find jobs.
Their experience raises a question: Is there a mismatch between older workers looking for a job and the workers employers need to retain?
Part of the answer is that the real staffing shortage is still a few years away, said Roger Sauvé, a demographic analyst based in Sooke, B.C. The big push to keep older people working will come, but probably not for another 10 years, he said.
The other part of the answer is the types of older people looking for jobs. Citing retirement trends over the last 10 years, Sauvé noted that workers with a high income and a high level of education have tended to be the first to retire. Looking at Statistics Canada data for the period between 1996 and 2000, he noted the median age of retirement was 58.7 among university degree holders, 60.8 among those with post-secondary education, including colleges and technical schools, 60.3 among high school grads and 64.4 among workers with less than high school education.
“Generally, people work because they have to, even if they enjoy it,” said Sauvé.
And people will have to work longer, said Henri-Paul Rouseau, president and chief executive officer of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which manages public and private pension and insurance plans in Quebec. He pointed to the level of pension underfunding (affecting more than half of defined benefit plans at the end of 2004, according to the Association of Canadian Pension Managers) and the declining share of Canadians covered by pension plans (34 per cent in 2003, down from 44 per cent in 1992, according to actuary Malcolm Hamilton). In a speech to pension managers earlier this year, Rousseau cited Financial Analysts Journal authors Robert Arnott and Anne Casscells who wrote: “A combination of poor investment returns and rising prices for goods and services can accomplish the same thing as boosting retirement (age) by fiat, albeit without giving advance warning to would-be retirees.”
Attitudes towards retirement are starting to change, according to The Future of Retirement: What the World Wants, compiled by HSBC, a London-based bank. Based on answers submitted by 21,000 individuals across the globe — 1,000 in Canada — the survey found only 10 per cent of Canadian respondents said people should retire at 65. About half said people should retire when they want to, about a quarter said when they can afford to and the remaining 13 per cent said when they could no longer do the job.
However, when asked when people should retire, the average age forwarded by Canadian respondents was 62.2 for men and 60.6 for women. When asked what would be the most important reason for working past the traditional age of retirement, financial need came in on top with 24 per cent of respondents.
The survey also supports Sauvé’s assertion that some employers aren’t yet feeling an acute need. Although 74 per cent of surveyed employers said they try to retain older workers with hard-to-replace skills and 77 per cent said they encouraged older workers to keep working, only 36 per cent said they recruit older workers and 14 per cent even encourage older workers to retire early.
Asked why they’re not doing more to attract or retain older workers, 38 per cent of Canadian employers said this was not an urgent issue, 33 per cent said there was no need, 32 per cent said the work is too physical for people past a certain age and 29 per cent said older workers are more expensive.
Employers surveyed also expressed some reservations about this older age group’s technological aptitude and their ability to learn.
In Zaluska’s experience, discrimination plays a barrier, as do outdated skills. Among the clients she helped, many didn’t have computer experience. However, they had a lifetime of well-honed work ethics.
“I would like to see employers open up more and be more receptive to older workers, because they are reliable, dependable, and they’re life-long learners,” she said.
