United Kingdom: Survey Finds Businesses Actively Recruiting Older Workers

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's annual "Recruitment, Retention and Turnover Survey," United Kingdom organizations "are responding to recruitment difficulties and new age regulations by adapting their recruitment and retention policies and actively targeting older workers." Specifically, the survey finds that 70% of employers are actively seeking to recruit people aged between 55 and pension age, while 31% are seeking to recruit people already entitled to the state pension.

Nicola Monson, author of the report, says, “It is encouraging to see that so many organisations are introducing age diverse practices ahead of the new regulations in October. This enables employers to tap into the relatively unused talent pool of older workers to overcome recruitment difficulties and help build an age diverse workforce that can add real value to business, not just in terms of older workers but all age groups. However in order to recruit fairly and remove any age bias there is still much that can be done, for example removing any age-related criteria from the application process.”

The full report will be available on CIPD's website after June 21.

Source: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development Press Release (June 12, 2006)