The OECD has developed a new report in partnership with Generation: You Employed Inc. that urges business leaders and individuals to start seizing the opportunities an ageing workforce presents. It also advises midcareer and older workers to keep building their skills, particularly digital ones, to be included as employers embrace AI and other emerging technologies.
The report confirms that steady shifts in demography have been visible and predictable for decades. The consequences are now upon us and are at the core of the report. Across countries the employment age profile follows an inverted-U shape; employment rises and peaks around age 45 and then declines sharply after age 50. With more ageing in store everywhere, until societies begin to bend this curve, the situation will only worsen.
On the one hand, the study found the stereotype against older workers is still very present: hiring managers cling to a deeply held perception bias against job candidates over the age of 45. On the other hand, those very same managers also acknowledge that when they do hire people over 45, those workers perform on the job just as well as or even better than their younger counterparts.
As prior OECD research has suggested, companies with thriving intergenerational workforces tend to see higher productivity than those skewed too heavily toward just one end of the age spectrum.
Empowering workers to extend their workspan alongside their lifespan demands a host of smart micro-interventions. Older workers will need to reassess their own biases. For example, many older workers overvalue experience, whereas employers put a premium on candidates who have engaged in relevant training and upskilling.
Since engagement with training tends to decrease with age for multiple reasons, the OECD contends that employers and policymakers should consider more targeted interventions, aimed at making training more engaging – and in some cases more affordable – for workers around that critical midcareer moment of age 45 and older.
It suggests governments rethink support for increasingly outmoded early-retirement incentive schemes that negatively affect both sides of the labour market. And it suggests employers consider altering their recruiting processes to remove the pervasive biases that currently exist against midcareer and older job candidates.
The OECD’s The Mid-Career Opportunity: Meeting the challenges of an ageing workforce can be found here
