Labor tackles ageing workforce

THE AUSTRALIAN Labor Party recently launched its $212.4 million mature age worker strategy, which includes plans for a rapid assistance service for mature age workers facing retrenchment, the deployment of mature age workplace trainers and the establishment of a training partnerships fund.

The strategy is designed to keep mature age people in the workforce and help those out of the workforce back into a job, according to Anthony Albanese, Shadow Minister for Employment Services and Training.

“A third of Australians aged between 50 and 64 are on income support and nearly one in two Australians aged 55 to 64 are not in the labour force,” he said.

“With an ageing population and growing skills shortages in key industries, wasting the skills and experience of mature age Australians is not an option.”

The strategy includes plans for the establishment of mature age worker career centres, which are designed to provide job search assistance, literacy and numeracy assessment, counselling and career change advice.

A rapid assistance service is also planned for workers who are facing large-scale or regional retrenchments, along with a training partnerships fund to encourage employers to re-train mature age workers. The fund will match employer investment in mature age training up to $1,250 per worker.

Other initiatives include $2,000 learning bonuses for mature age job seekers who take up an apprenticeship or traineeship in areas of skills shortage, the development of new procedures for formally recognising the existing skills and workplace experiences of mature age workers when they attain new qualifications and the deployment of 125 mature age workplace trainers to develop and implement workplace training plans.

“We want to reward effort – investing in those workers who want to keep their skills relevant to the demands of the modern workforce,” said Albanese.

“Our plan will help address the challenges of an ageing population. It is a real intergenerational solution.”

At a cost of $212.4 million, Labor said the strategy will be subject to independent checking by PricewaterhouseCoopers, with details to be released prior to the federal election.

However Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Kevin Andrews said Labor’s straategy was an “uncosted and unfunded dog’s breakfast” and would result in an “expensive mess based on skewed labour market analysis”.

“Labor’s Rapid Assistance Service plan – to be administered by Centrelink – will only encourage employers to target mature age workers for retrenchment,” he said.

“Federal Labor plans to establish career centres outside of the Job Network services as well as specific mature age Job Network Providers – without allocating any funds.

“This is just wrong – and a slap in the face to the Job Network services which last financial year placed 95,500 mature age workers into work.”

He said the Australian Government is already assisting 183,000 mature age workers, and that its $12.1 million mature age employment and workplace strategy remains a top priority.

ACTU president Sharan Burrow believed the strategy was a step in the right direction, praising Labor for getting “it right where the government has failed”.

“Unemployment amongst mature age workers aged over 45 is too high and the Government has no plans to address this.”

She cited recent data which found that there are currently 120,000 Australian mature age workers who are unemployed but are seeking work.

Labor’s mature age worker strategy also includes plans for 500 additional places in the New Enterprise Incentive Scheme, along with extra training for mature age workers in information technology.