Media Releases > Press Articles 2002

COTA to Research Older Workers' Needs
Fifty-Plus News, June 2002 p4

By Veronica Sheen

COTA Australia is turning the spotlight on mature age employment. It has recently won funding for two new projects in this growing, important area. The results will provide valuable new insights into the issues faced by older workers in the 21^st century.

The first is a Government funded project looking at information for older workers on the changing nature of the labour market and portfolio employment.

COTA won this tender from the Federal Department of Employment and Workplace Relations. It is to run experimental workshops with mature age workers in Brisbane, Bundaberg, Adelaide and Melbourne this month (June).

The workshops are aimed at ensuring that older people are well informed about their labour market prospects in the context of providing information about a wide range of other supports such as training, job search assistance and personal counselling.

They will use the best expertise available on the issues about the changing labour market from COTA itself, Government, and agencies including Job Network and private employment agencies.

One of the key aims is to introduce the idea of "portfolio" employment which may encompass a number of jobs which are part-time, casual or on contract. Such a "portfolio" may be a way of generating income, it may be a stepping stone to full time employment with one employer - or it may be a preferred way of working for some people in their pre-retirement years - and it may be a sustainable alternative for people wanting to work beyond conventional retirement age.

The trial workshops will be subject to a rigorous evaluation.

The second project is funded by the Australian Research Council. It is a Linkages Project, 'Negotiating Transitions to Retirement'.

COTA is in partnership with Dr Linda Hancock of Deakin University to conduct this research over 2002-2003.

It will ask questions such as:

• What changes in employment, family life and society have affected people in the pre-retirement years over the past 40 years?
• Have these changes strained the social support systems for this group?
• What new systems of support may be needed? For example, we know that a very large proportion of people in the 50-64 age group - around 33 per cent - are reliant on an income support payments. Why is this the case? Is this desirable and what needs to be done?

COTA believes that this project will provide new material which will assist in social policy formulation aimed at people in their pre retirement years.

Veronica Sheen, COTA's Deputy National Executive Director, is project coordinator for both projects. She will also be travelling to the USA and Europe in August and September to study ageing workforce policies and projects as part of her Churchill Fellowship.