Oldest In The Office

In a work culture that venerates digital skills, the data shows those who started their careers without email are fighting to get (or hold on to) jobs. Can upskilling and a wardrobe update stop you from being sidelined?

- Kirstie Clements

I was having dinner with a friend recently, a seasoned journalist and published author in her early sixties. She had been on the hunt for work and was completely disheartened. “I know it’s my age,” she said. “I’m applying for roles I know I’m more than capable of, and they say they are looking for an experienced person who can run a team, but they really want someone around 35 years old.”

My friend is smart and attractive, and doesn’t look anywhere near her age, but that’s hardly the point. The financial wolf is very much at her door, yet she is three years off the official retirement age in Australia, which is currently 66 and slated to be 67 by the year 2023. It has become a frequent predicament in a tight economic environment, as companies downsize and workers who were expecting to stay in senior roles until retirement are suddenly on the scrapheap, competing with a younger generation who are used to a volatile gig economy. According to a survey by LinkedIn, Australia is in the midst of an ageism crisis, and not just for the baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1966). According to the Australian Human Rights Commission’s 2015 national prevalence survey of age discrimination in the workplace, 27 per cent of people over the age of 50 reported experiencing age discrimination at work. Add to this a technological divide that can exist with those who are not digital natives and it is a snapshot of a very accomplished older generation who are increasingly underutilized and underemployed — in 2018, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found four in five people aged 55 and over had difficulty finding work.