Are you over 50? Or will you one day be over 50? Because aging is a reality that everyone will face at some point.

Did you know that the Australian working population is 7.4x more likely to have workers over the age of 50* than the media industry?

But the issue isn't just with the over 50s. When you look at where the drop happens, it's in the 40-49* band where the industry's population is 13% compared to the Australian working population of 23%.

In a world focusing on diversity and inclusion, ageism is a reality and an unconscious bias.

A group of past and present industry leaders created a task force, aptly named the Experience Advocacy Taskforce (or EAT) to address this. The task force has been set up to tackle two areas that have impacted the numbers above:

1. There are not enough roles for those who don't want to climb the traditional corporate ladder, yet still have so much experience to contribute.

2. Ageism is rife and countless experienced industry professionals can't get a job.

Everyone in the industry has been (or will be) affected by this universal issue. EAT's vision is to make ageism a non-issue for the next generation and the big hairy audacious goal is to dismantle the task force by 2030.

Advocate for experience by pledging to make ageism a non-issue and tell us why it's important to you.

EAT needs your voice for this issue to be taken seriously by everyone in the industry.

Thank you!

Source: MFA Census 2022 and ABS data*