Jobs and Skills Australia’s Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey (of around 1,000 employers each month) sought views about their experiences with mature age job applicants and the kinds of strategies and programs employers typically used to assist successful mature age applicants into the workplace.
Key findings
- Just over one third of employers reported having a mature age applicant in the previous 12 months.
- Employers commonly hired a mature age applicant because of their experience, positive attitude, strong work ethic and qualifications and/or skills.
- When an employer hadn’t employed a mature age applicant, experience and qualification and/or skills were some of the reasons mature aged candidates were not hired for the vacancy.
- The strategy most used by employers to support mature age workers was allowing flexible work conditions. That included flexible work hours, part-time hours, and flexible location such as working from home. However, it should be noted that almost three quarters of the employers that had implemented flexible work conditions for the successful mature applicants cited that they were available to all staff.
About the Recruitment Experience and Outlook Survey (REOS) report
As part of the Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey (REOS), we contact employers across Australia to learn about their recruitment experiences and activity. Included in the survey between August and November 2023, a temporary question module was added on a topic of interest. We asked employers how they go about recruiting for new staff and the skills and qualities they were looking for. We spoke with 3,014 employers who were all directly involved with the recruitment of staff of which 1,025 had had a mature age applicant in the last 12 months.
Find out more on the Recruitment Experiences and Outlook Survey page.