Subsidies for hiring older workers

NickOttens

This is one of the innovations we discussed: government subsidies to encourage companies to hire workers over the age of 50.

Research suggests it would help bring more people into the workforce, which is good for them and good for the economy overall.

But the question here is: would it shift attitudes toward aging as well?

@Stefanie, @ohjanet, @enichols, you might have thoughts on this.

If you think the answer is "yes", please up-vote this idea. In this activity, we are crowdsourcing ideas for remedies to some of the biggest obstacles to a longer and healthy life.

Stefanie

Interesting question. My personal opinion: We don't need government subsidies to encourage companies to hire people over 50. I would be in favor of government subsidies to retrain people over 50 and government stipends (like Foster Grandparents receive) to encourage more older adults to get involved in the lives of kids and get paid modest amounts to do so. (And we could do a lot to strengthen laws against age discrimination. ) But most important: Let's look at older workers as assets to solve social problems -- and act accordingly.

LisaCovington

Excellent point @Stefanie ! Love the idea of a subsidy for retraining vs hiring. If we're living longer, makes sense we're going to want to do different things after say, being a project manager for 30+ years.

Stefanie

Agreed!

arshimehboob

Australian Government through the Department of Jobs and Small Business under Wage subsidies has started in an initiative 'Restart' is a financial incentive of up to $10,000 (GST inclusive) to encourage businesses to hire and retain mature age employees who are 50 years of age and over.
Restart has helped over 1,600 mature aged job seekers to return to the workforce and reduced the costs of hiring for employers.