Dozens of Illawarra business leaders met on Tuesday to discuss the challenges faced by older people looking for work, and age discrimination in the workplace.
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Age and Disability Discrimination Commissioner Susan Ryan addressed the group, and hoped the result would be a change of attitude towards employing people aged above 50.
"We're saying, 'what is stopping you from hiring these people when they're qualified, what is it that has to change for you to just become an employer of the best candidate'," she said.
Ms Ryan also believes recruitment agencies need to be targeted in this campaign as well, saying sometimes they "try to find the most easily placed candidates, instead of perhaps the best skilled" to get commission.
"I'm starting a national inquiry now into employment discrimination against older people ... I've said to employers, 'why do you only take [younger people]' and they say 'oh that's all [recruitment agencies] send us'. They are the client, they should say 'I want the best person for the job'."
It comes as the Reserve Bank warned on Tuesday that people leaving the workforce now had it much tougher than those who left a decade ago and would need to accept more financial risk to fund their retirement.
A national report released last week found workplace age discrimination was rife, with more than a quarter of people aged above 50 experiencing some form of discrimination during 2013-14.
The National Report on the Prevalence of Age Discrimination in the Workforce also found 58 per cent of people aged 50 and over were more likely to experience age discrimination when looking for work.
Advocate for older generations, Illawarra's IRT Group, said it heard a lot about the burden and economic drain of an ageing population.
"We hope Susan's address will bring business leaders in the region [to understand] about the value of older people and what they can actually bring, not just to society but to the workforce, the economy and to retailers and so forth," said IRT Group CEO, Nieves Murray.
Ms Murray's message to those over 50 looking for work is to not despair. "Identify the skills [you] have and build on those, and develop new skills - be proactive about it."
Both Ms Murray and Ms Ryan agreed the services industry was a good direction to go in.
"Not just the carers, but organisers, marketers, drivers, maintenance people for the residential villages, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, there's a whole range of work that aged care services in general produce," Ms Ryan said.