Employers are still reluctant to recruit older workers

Human resources (HR) professionals don't want to employ older workers, despite acknowledging the skills crisis arising from the UK's ageing workforce.

A survey of 500 human resources (HR) practitioners by Personnel Today magazine found that they generally recognised the value older workers can bring to an organisation, and 88% agreed that companies will have to recruit older staff in the future. But hardly any wanted to employ over-65s themselves, with a fifth feeling that they would be too old to do most jobs.

Nearly all respondents (91%) believed that age discrimination is rife in UK companies, with a quarter saying that it existed within their own organisation. And over two-thirds (69%) admitted that their company is not prepared for the employment pressures that lie ahead.

The survey results were published a week after the local government Employers' Organisation (EO) warned that the "demographic timebomb" could bring council services to a halt.

A quarter of council workers are due to retire in the next decade, but at the moment only 8% of the local government workforce is aged under 25.

EO research has found that children/family social work, occupational therapy, teaching, trading standards and environmental health are the main areas where councils are finding it hard to recruit young people to keep up with "natural wastage" caused by retirements.