View Diana Crossan's Managing the Ageing Workforce Conference presentation. (69KB, PDF)
The research found that encouraging people to work post-65 would have positive benefits for the workplace; demand for healthcare would outstrip supply; and friends, rather than families would play a bigger part in providing care for future older New Zealanders.
A Labour Department report* has found that the number of working Kiwis classed as ‘older workers’ (aged 50 - 64) has more than doubled between 1991 and 2005.
“It’s great that the skills and experience of more than half a million older New Zealanders are being retained within the workforce,” Ms Crossan said.
“Employers are making big efforts to retain skilled staff,” says Dr Philippa Reed, EEO Trust Chief Executive. “Many tell us that they’re ensuring older people get the training they need, reconfiguring roles to ensure people’s skills and expertise are retained and mechanising manual jobs.”
The research, called Older Workers: Employers Speak Out, is the result of 26 in-depth interviews with employer members of the EEO Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that supports workplaces to make the most of New Zealand’s diverse talent pool.
Sorted 60plus also includes the 60plus budget calculator which will help you work out how much of a nest egg you’ll need to cover your semi-retirement/retirement spending, and the Managing your nest egg calculator which will take the value of your nest egg as at today and show you how much money you could spend each year from now.
This paper was written as input to the Retirement Commissioner's 2007 Review of Retirement Income Policy to give an overview of the situation and issues in employment for older people.
This report examines broad changes that have occurred in the level and composition of employment for those aged 50 to 64 over the past 15 years, (1991 to 2005). It is based primarily on data from the Statistics New Zealand Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS).
This report was published by the New Zealand Research Institute for Research on Aging, and is an update of a 2003 report. It argues that if people in mid-life are unable to contribute to their full economic capacity because of unemployment, underemployment, premature retirement, discrimination or other circumstances, then this has serious implications for their futures, for business, for society and the economy as a whole. This report looks at where New Zealand is and where New Zealand is going in terms of maximising the potential of older workers.
The report demonstrates that, due to the aging of the New Zealand population, growth in the workforce will not only slow but will eventually turn to a decline. As a result, New Zealand is likely to face labour and skill shortages. Neither immigration nor raising the birth rates is likely to solve this problem. The report argues that there is a need to improve and develop the human capital New Zealand already has by maximising the potential of older workers.