Investing in a more age-inclusive workforce can help us navigate demographic shifts

Mounting research shows that older workers are often overlooked, and their needs unmet; an estimated 76% of employees have suffered age discrimination at work. Many experience this at interview stage, with US and European-based hiring managers favoring younger candidates. These hiring managers are more likely to consider younger candidates for roles involving AI, for example, due to their assumed digital savvy.

Despite a desire to continue working past retirement, 25% of people aged 55 or older encounter barriers to finding opportunities, leaving them vulnerable to financial insecurity and exposing businesses to talent, knowledge, and skills gaps. This is a cause for concern, given that nearly four in 10 workers globally face financial instability after unplanned career interruptions such as career breaks, illness, or unexpected retirement. This financial fragility is more likely to be felt by mid-career and older people, who can become trapped in long-term unemployment after losing their job; US Bureau of Labor Statistics data suggests that, on average, 40% of Americans who are long-term unemployed are aged 45 or older.

It’s not just finding work that can be a challenge. Insecurity can permeate once work is found, too. Many people in low-income countries, for example, must forfeit rights and protections by pursuing informal employment in order to regain financial security. According to the OECD, informal work is more prevalent between the ages of 15 and 24, and after age 65 – when over three-quarters of working people are informally employed (this falls to 55% during traditional working years).

In light of demographic shifts and the advent of new technologies, the need for employees to reskill and upskill to remain employable is rising. With the multi-stage career becoming more common, a value-adding worker is one who can demonstrate fungibility regardless of their age, experience, or technical background. However, career reinvention remains a challenge. Only a quarter of employees believe that horizontal and lateral career moves are prevalent in their organization, which suggests that making a mid-career move is out of the question for many.

Retraining is key to unlocking career mobility – yet, mid-career and older workers too often miss out on learning and development opportunities, which can be weighted towards younger workers. According to AARP International, 41% of the workers aged 45 or older who have not participated in any job training in the last five years want to do so. But this need is not being met; Mercer’s Global Talent Trends Study suggests that only 56% of people born between 1946 and 1964 trust their organization to keep their skills up to date (versus 72% of those born between 1981 and 2012).

This mistrust is evidence of the systemic workplace ageism employers have yet to shake. More experienced workers fear that requesting training, especially related to technology, is equivalent to admitting to a critical knowledge gap – one that might make them more susceptible to losing their job in a restructuring or resizing. To mitigate this, employers need to create psychologically safe environments, and carve out time for employees to learn while in the flow of work.

Talent scarcity and knowledge loss offer clear business rationale for empowering older workers. It’s time that longevity was understood as a multifaceted concept with far-reaching repercussions; left unaddressed, it impacts workforce participation, productivity, flexibility, caregiving, financial security, public health, and healthcare costs – and dampens broader economic growth.

Here are four actions businesses can take to invest in an age-inclusive workforce:

Changing perceptions of career paths and progression, especially in later years, is integral to cultivating a more fluid workforce where skills, not jobs, are the currency of work. The World Economic Forum and Mercer's insight report on the Longevity Economy Principles emphasizes the importance of “Evolving jobs and lifelong skill-building for a multigenerational workforce,” to help address systemic age bias.

Age-friendly employer pledges, cross-company commitments, and awareness-building exercises such as intergenerational events can help promote shared accountability for improving opportunities in later life, and champion employee-employer collaboration.

While younger workers tend to use Gen AI to fill knowledge gaps, older workers’ experience helps them apply critical thinking to AI outputs. Older and younger workers can learn from each other, by being paired up for AI training or through the active use of AI coaches – whose knowledge bases are built on business insights from experienced workers.

One electric utility company does just this, by training its small-language model with the expertise of its senior attorneys, thereby informing a robust “first draft” of regulatory filings for junior talent to work with.

Fair and flexible Good Work that creates a net positive for well-being is crucial for people who want (or need) to work longer. Whether through phased retirement or pared-back hours, facilitating longer working lives can aid circular learning, and positively impact social well-being

Programs such as Unilever’s U-Work help people maintain financial security through a monthly retainer, while offering the flexibility of gig-style work. It improves retirement outcomes for those that might otherwise drop out of the workforce early, though it’s not just targeted at older workers. Flexible working can enable anyone to pursue their passion, start a business, or care for a family member.

Living longer exacerbates existing disparities and bias based on gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and geography. Organizations are rife with ageism, and women in particular may feel additional pressure due to longevity-related challenges; they tend to live longer, but are also relatively more likely to drop out of the workforce to become unpaid caregivers – which contributes to lower savings in retirement.

Interventions should be those that apply an intersectional lens to tackling ageism and longevity inequalities in the workplace, though sadly these are few and far between.

Combining all of these actions can enhance workforce health and well-being, close talent and skills gaps, and improve knowledge transfer, so that businesses can better respond to the ripple effects of global demographic shifts.

This is how we can tackle age bias – so that thriving employees get an opportunity to work longer, and societies become healthier.

With thanks to Ellie Green, Lin Shi, Adèle Jacquard, and Isabelle Leliaert, who made many valuable contributions to this article.