Employing Older Workers

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Imagine yourself as a boss. Will you employ someone who is in his 40s or even 50s? If I am a boss, I am willing to employ them. It is because I strongly agree that age is an asset; experience is a benefit. Everyone is valuable in their own way. So, we should not be bias toward the older worker. At the end of my speech, I would like to have persuaded you that employing older workers makes good business sense. In Singapore, there is a trend for companies to hire graduates on the ground. They see these young people are energetic, quick learners and have bright ideas. Management hire them and happily train them. Once they have picked up some skills and experience on the job, they will hand in their resignation letters. This can be an endless cycle hire and train. This is unlike for the older worker. Many of them have years of job experience and are of the generation whereby loyalty matters a great deal to them, I wonder why bosses do not seek out these persons. The most common barrier of employing older worker might be due to the cost. Cost competitiveness remains a key challenge today especially with intense global competition. It is necessary to continue with measures to ensure that the cost of employing and retaining older workers does not affect business competitiveness of employers, as this will eventually weaken the job security and employability of older workers. Government introduced a plan of restructuring older worker wages towards a flexible and performance-based wage system. The worker is paid based on the value of the job and his contribution. This improves an older worker’s cost competitiveness and employability. For example Canon in Singapore changed its wage model to a performance-based wage structure. The new wage model helps in the re-employment of older workers because it replaces the conventional seniority-based structure. The basic

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