Laurie Ferguson (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This evening I want to articulate an increasing trend among constituents coming to my office. My electorate is younger than the national average, so this situation will be more pronounced in many other electorates. Looking at the June 2010 ABS figures, there were on average at that time 58,000 over 55 years of age who were unemployed. During that period, 46 per cent of unemployed older people had been looking for work for more than six months. That compares very negatively with the 32 per cent ratio for those under 55 years of age. In the June quarter of 2010, 97,000 Australians aged 55 years were also underemployed. Amongst older underemployed workers, women were more likely to have been underemployed for more than a year—50 per cent—than men, 33 per cent.

The unemployment of older Australians has both social and economic implications. National Seniors Australia estimates an economic loss of $10.8 billion a year to the Australian economy for not utilising the skills and experience of older Australians. In many areas, there is a real skills deficit with the decline in support for TAFE, which has been very pronounced in Victoria recently. The association estimates a loss of $8.7 billion a year for not utilising the skills and experience of older Australians who want to work but were not looking for work as at September 2008 and a further loss of $2 billion a year for not utilising the skills and experience of 39,000 people who were unemployed and looking for full-time work and a further 17,000 unemployed who were looking for part-time work.

There is no endeavour to compel people to work longer than they want to, but it is the reality that many Australians do wish to work longer.

I have had complaints from constituents about the situation in this country—under Labor and Liberal, quite frankly—where companies that are supposedly assisting people are given no responsibility from the government of the day to provide any real support for families where one partner is working. We might say that there is some social equity in that. But, equally, one has to question it when the country is losing out by not using such available skills and productivity of people who are inclined to work because of their desire to do so or for financial reasons. One of the points that are often put to me by these people—it is their perspective on life; it is not always realistic—is their feeling that long-term unemployed people often are not going take up those jobs, for a variety of reasons, but that they are denied assistance, beyond the most cursory levels, to gain employment, even though they may be more inclined to go and take up such employment. They see a proliferation of advertisements that talk about fun-loving teams and young vibrant companies, which they see as code for 'Oldies, don't bother applying.' They also see that many jobs require only two to three or maybe three to five years experience. They ask themselves why the job never talks about needing 20 to 30 years experience. They see clearly that a lot of experience is neither wanted nor valued. Equally, they see in the labour market in this country a disinclination to give any feedback to people and a lack of encouragement for employers regarding possibilities.

The other thing that bedevils the labour market in this country regards overseas skills. Constantly people bemoan the lack of recognition of qualifications from overseas. I have always thought that that is a secondary problem. The real problem with Australian employers is around the preference for Australian experience. We see employers rejecting people with two and three degrees, with 20 years overseas experience in engineering and science, often in comparable work and economic circumstances, for somebody down the road who has had a few weeks experience in Australia. That unfortunately is an attitude that prevails. I want to reiterate the very real losses in productivity, wellbeing and social support for people in this country from the lack of assistance given in the Australian labour market for people in their late 50s and their view that they are ignored or forgotten and feel that society is not interested in them—yet they can make a very real contribution.