Australia’s population is continuing to work as they age. What’s more, Australian mature age workers are continuing to find employment. Now more than ever, Australia is improving its employment rates of 55 to 64 year-old workers.

This can mean big things for the future of business, with a lot of experienced individuals staying in the workforce. It used to be that a person would have one job for their lifetime, but people are now switching to hold several careers. A person who was once an architect could now be an editor, or a businessperson. With the mature age workforce staying on for longer, you now have access to a wealth of knowledge – if you know how to use it.

Australian employment thriving

The PwC Gold Age Index has examined OECD rankings and found that Australia is on the up for employment of mature age workers. OECD is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It compares how people live in different countries, and how well they are thriving.

Australia has jumped four places in the last 12 months. It is now the 12^th in the OECD countries for employing mature age workers. The land girt by sea is improving in many areas. 55 to 64 year olds are now fifth in the OECD countries for full-time earnings, and the 13^th for employment rates. For the next age band, 65 to 69 year-olds, Australia has the 11^th best employment rate.

More employment requires better organisation

The employment of more Australian mature age workers means a larger workforce in general. And where there are more workers, there needs to be more organisation. To cope with the needs of the changing workforce, companies have had to think outside the box. As the workforce becomes older, perhaps the solution is for technology to become newer.

Software and automation cannot account for the experience that these mature age workers bring to the job. The benefit of keeping people in the workforce is they have a wealth of life-long experience to draw from. However as such, they should not be needed for mundane tasks.

Automation is removing the need for humans to do repetitive tasks, and streamline systems so everyone in a company is on the same page. With Australia ranking highly on the OECD rankings for training of mature age workers, it’s clear that organisation is crucial.

Apps such as Roubler don’t separate employees into young and old. All of the recruitment and organisation is run by a single program – our all-in-one workforce management software (WMS). Where previously payroll was separate to scheduling, and that again was separate from onboarding, now they are in a single place. Instead of hiring workers for their skills at clicking buttons to pay employee after employee, you can hire for experience. And this is something Australian mature age workers have in spade.