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The Government’s renewed focus on workforce ageing was apparent at yesterday’s CEDA Workforce Skills and Demographic Change forum held in Sydney.

Senator The Hon Mark Arbib, Minister for Employment Participation acknowledged that whilst the ageing of the Australian workforce is indeed a significant challenge, employers can combat the challenge by actively boosting the labour force participation rate of mature workers.

The Senator added that there is a ‘supply and demand’ imbalance. This is only set to worsen through the unprecedented retirement of a generation of workers who occupy roles falling under the Skilled Occupation Categories (including engineers, IT and health workers).

“The most common letters across my desk are from writers aged 45+. We are talking about highly skilled and experienced people. Yet, they take 52 weeks on average to find a new job. Government AND employers need to work together to effect culture change”.

It was good to see that many enlightened employers were in the room to hear the address yesterday. AMP, Telstra and TransGrid to name a few. All of whom are already on the ‘age management journey’.

Professor Peter McDonald, ANU Director of Demographic Research, cited scenario modelling by Skills Australia and Access Economics that estimates 4.36m extra workers will be required over the next 15 years.

Almost the same number of boomers exiting the workforce over the same period to retirement…