What about older workers?
Recent figures suggest that unless health sector workplaces do more to retain workers aged 65 and over, they will soon be hit by the full force of the skills gap.
By Yasmin Noone
Health sector workplaces must adopt more incentives to enable and encourage older employees to continue working beyond age 65 if they are to avoid being hit by the a massive skills gap in the future, new figures suggest.
The recently released Clarius Skills Index, a measure of supply and demand of skilled labour, has predicted that Australia’s health sector will be among the top three industries to be dramatically hit by a skills gap within the next decade, as a half of its ageing workforce retires.
An analysis of the September quarter figures, undertaken by KPMG Econtech, shows that based on current trends, for every 110 health professionals who retire there will only be 84 qualified people to replace them. This will include general practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, dietitians and more.
A similar situation is expected in the other two industries named: education, which will have only 73 qualified people available to fill every 107 jobs created by retirement, and engineering, wwhere 18 per cent of those employed now are only a few years away from retirement.
CEO of the Clarius Group of recruitment companies, Kym Quick, said the problem of skills gaps persists in seven of the 20 occupations surveyed and will re-emerge for many others once the economy picks up pace and hiring follows suit.
“This will be further compounded as our ageing workforce reaches retirement.”
Ms Quick commented that while in 1998, less than 8.3 per cent of the labour force was aged between 55 and 65 years, today it has almost doubled to 13.8 per cent.
“These workers will reach retirement age in 10 to 15 years, and with a growing economy, Australian employers need to either convince them to stay longer in the labour market or plan to replace them with younger qualified workers,” Ms. Quick said.
“The big challenge of meeting our economy’s labour needs is not only to secure the number of workers to sustain our growth but also to ensure the correct skills mix of workers.
“Many businesses are already working to keep their older skilled employees, but more initiatives are needed to encourage and incentivise them to stay while at the same time ensure skill levels and our knowledge economy are transferred and extended across the workforce.”
United Voice’s national industry aged care coordinator, Sam Porter, said the union’s members are genuinely concerned about the consequence of an ageing aged care workforce.
“They are deeply worried that unless workforce issues are addressed they will not be able to deliver this quality care in the future,” Mr Porter said.
“This problem is only going to get worse as the growth in demand for aged care will require an additional 500,000 people to join the industry in coming years.
“The aged care workforce is in fact ageing at a faster rate than the general community, making this challenge even more urgent and pressing.
“The current workforce, consisting largely of older women working part-time, have been outstanding in delivering dignity to ageing Australians over many years, however they are worried about the future.
“United Voice members see colleagues retiring and not being replaced.
“There is only one thing that will attract the next generation of committed carers – wages and conditions that make the industry attractive to all people.”
Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) Victorian state secretary, Lloyd Williams, agrees.
For example, he said, in his state there is a worsening crisis in the supply of psychiatric nurses (including aged care nurses who work in mental health), due psychiatric nurses leaving the sector because they are nearing retirement age.
Referring to a recent survey of nursing and direct care staff working in mental health, Mr Lloyd said that more than 70 per cent had had been in the sector for over 10 years, while around 48 cent had done so for 20 or more years. Yet, 30 per cent said they intend to leave mental health employment in the next one to five years.
“General nursing is not experiencing similar shortages because general nurse training continues to be provided at the undergraduate level in universities.
“Specialist training at the undergraduate level for psychiatric nurses was abolished in the early 90’s and this has led to a shortage of graduate nurses choosing to work in mental health because general trained nurses need to undertake post graduate studies to achieve the appropriate level of skill and knowledge.
“Currently we are experiencing an increased demand for services (eight per cent per year) which is outstripping funding. With one in five Victorians suffering a mental health issue in the past twelve months, this is a worrying trend.”
Ok, the stats simply confirm everything commentators have been saying for the past five years. The bigger question is what can employers do that will ease labour shortages?
For the past five years the focus has been upon how we cater for the needs of younger employees. This group is not the group we need to focus upon. Reducing the turnover of younger employees is not going to resolve labour shortages.
Mature workers are tired, frustrated and totally fed up. More of the same will not encourage them to remain in the workplace any longer than need be.
For employers, the questions might be, what can we do to make work more pleasurable, less stressful, less likely to result in injury or pain etc, so that mature workers will want to remain a couple of years longer, or work part time into their retirement. We’re not competing for wages, we’re competing against a deck chair, a red wine and a caravan in the outback! The way we work now simply encourages people to retire; it doesn’t encourage people to work. Has anyone asked 55+ employees what it would take to keep them in the workforce? Would employers listen if we asked?
As I read through various forums the message is consistent. People are concerned about being asked to do more with less people. That problem is not going to go away. There will not be the people to fill the gap. This suggests we need to look at workplace processes and job design. The focus for the next thirty years shouldn’t be upon protecting work conditions created for another age – a shortage means that workers can do that for themselves – the focus should be upon creating workplace conditions that enable existing workers to do their work in the most stress free manner. In that way both younger workers and mature workers will want to remain with an employer.
There is no doubt the future is going to cost more. Not only for salaries but also for funding to enable workplace change to take place and it will require a different mindset from both management and unions. What concerns me is there is little evidence to suggest additional funding will be made available for this purpose, nor is the any evidence of new thinking by either management or the union movement.
Maybe we’re busy addressing the symptoms and not looking at the root cause of the problem.
John Coxon
http://www.johncoxon.com.au
although I agree with the comments above there are at least 2 other issues that need to be addressed if older workers are to be encouraged to stay at work
access to superannuation for workers over 70 has been a major problem in that they are working for 9% less than younger workers doing the same job..recent announcements by the Federal govt hav gone some way to address this in the future but doesn’t help those of us who are already in this age group.
similar problems with access to work Cover remains to be addressed.
If the government really wants to ensure that older workers remain in or return to the workforce they need to really lead the way – possibly by some form of positive discrimination in government employment and/or providing some subsidy to employers who take on older workers. without this changing workplace conditions will have a limited effect.