I think the federal government could provide support and leadership for employers to make them aware of what they're dealing with when they have an older workforce. There are skills that are going begging because these older workers are not getting the training or retraining support, as the case may be.
If the woman from your scenario is interested in working in a different field, unless she has enough EI credits she is not able to do that. What also happens is that when a skill development program proposal goes forward there is not exactly a bias, but there's an awareness that the person is 58 years old and requires two years of retraining. How long is that person going to be in the workforce, and is that a viable return?
So there are issues around retraining. There are issues around employer awareness. For example, many older workers, myself included, cannot work in low-light environments. If an employer wants me to bring my skills into his place, he has to give me a chair that supports my back and light levels so I can actually perform the work.
We don't have enough awareness yet, and the government can provide leadership to say, look, we have this untapped resource of older workers, and a little bit of investment--not a huge investment--by the employer will actually get you the people you need. It will also help with knowledge transfer, so younger people can have the information they need to retain the corporate vision, the institutional memory.