Second meeting with Age Discrimination Commissioner, Dr Kay Patterson

Today, I was fortunate to be able to spend 90 mins with Dr Kay Patterson discussing the feedback from this petition, the questionnaire and your private emails about job ageism. Our very productive discussion focused positively on what might done to put a stop to ageist recruitment practices, prehistoric work place cultures that mitigate against mulitgenerational, inclusive workplaces and some ideas for helping older people into work. I provided examples of ageist practices around the recruitment and selection of candidates. This included actual advertisements, requests for date of birth and requests for 100 points of ID from a diverse range of employers and recruiters amongst other evidence of ageist practices. Dr Patterson has met with a number of Federal Ministers and public service agencies to discuss job ageism as well as some of the other big issues that result from unemployment, such as threat of homelessness. Dr Patterson's advocacy for multi-pronged strategies to end job ageism reflect your feedback from the questionnaire that a collaboration across Federal Ministers and other key agencies, opinion leaders and of course, those with the experience of job ageism is necessary to develop viable solutions to this problem. To those working in human resources, Dr Patterson strongly suggests that the culture of ageism that is set now will be the culture the next generation inherits......unless change happens now! So, let's keep going with this position. Ask your friends to sign or email me with their issues or ideas with anonymity guaranteed.