Human Resources Committee on May 2nd, 2013

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is a fascinating presentation. On the one hand you have the chamber talking about the challenges of tapping into the older workforce, and on the other hand we have a professor talking about ageism.

I only have a few minutes, so I'll give two questions right off the top.

First, what are the unique challenges in terms of educating older workers? Do you even—and I want to be a little sensitive about this—bother to educate workers over 65, or would most of the education be targeted at the workers aged 55 to 64?

Second, in terms of ageism, one of your main points has been that there's not enough study into this. What do you propose? I find it fascinating; I haven't heard much discussion about the problem of ageism. Considering, again, how we need to tap into that pool, what do we do about it?

[Sarah Anson-Cartwright]

I will start on your question about the challenges for those over 65, the older workers.

If we look at them in terms of existing employees, I think the employer is making sort of a calculation. There has to be a discussion with the employee in terms of how much longer, ideally, they would like to be working, or have the interest in working.

Then there's the calculation with respect to the investment in training that the employer is interested in making. There's that notion of continuous learning and the opportunity to keep upgrading your skills as your career progresses. That's in the existing worker.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

And now the unique challenges...?

[Sarah Anson-Cartwright]

Then there's the unemployed older worker, who for whatever reason at 65 or older is looking to stay working and earning an income. If there are challenges there, I think they may come back to the reference I made to educational attainment and the fact that the nature of work has changed. Perhaps if they were a long-tenured worker in a certain position, doing a certain type of work for many years, and then they came into the labour force looking for a new opportunity....

You know, we've seen a great deal of shift to this knowledge worker economy, and that is very different perhaps for many people. They may not have the skills set. There may need to be some essential skills training—the literacy, the numeracy, the other skills that would need to be addressed.

That really is the role of government, obviously. There are lot of good programs out there, and I think there's more attention needed. But it's bridging that gap and seeing the opportunity for new skills to be acquired so that they can at least have a much better crack at the skilled work that is available today.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I'm not sure that answered my question, but let's get to ageism.

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

Of course.

That is actually an excellent question. That is the big question in the research field and we are certainly not going to get to the solutions today.

At the beginning of my presentation, I mentioned that it took years before truly effective measures were in place to combat workplace sexism and racism. Right now, I think we have reached a turning point with the ageing of the workforce. Concrete measures have been implemented to put an end to ageism.

If I were really radical, I would say that we should have zero-tolerance policies for ageism in the workplace. I would specifically say that every manager must be responsible for their hiring decisions and must be accountable. When a young 35-year old worker and a 55-year old worker have the same skills, why is the young worker chosen?

Managers play a key role in changing attitudes. Ageism is an attitude. To change people's attitudes, employers must declare that they value ageing in the workplace.

If the head of a large company only meets with older workers to talk about their retirement, those workers will clearly feel that they are no longer useful. Why don't managers conduct loyalty-building interviews with older workers? Why not come up with career development policies specifically for people aged 50 and older?

Managers play a critical role. As a researcher, I have become a strong believer in zero-tolerance policies. However, I also think that we need national awareness campaigns to inform people about ageism. A lot of people are not familiar with the issue. Yet it is an insidious and damaging problem in the workplace.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that, Mr. Cleary.

And thank you for your response.

We'll move to Mr. Mayes. Go ahead.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

I want to talk to Professor Lagacé about the stereotyping. We were talking about the workforce, but it's really a societal thing. The financial institutions are preaching the gospel of freedom 55, and the unions are negotiating retirement ages further and further down. When I turned 55, I didn't think it was any different from being 54. It's a big issue. We're living longer, we're healthier, and that's putting pressure on company pension plans and on old age benefits that the government provides.

How can we change this attitude? It's not, as I say, an employer or a business attitude. It's more of a society attitude. How can we communicate that this whole gospel of having to stop and not do anything once you hit a certain age, 55 or 65, and that you're out into the pasture for the rest of your time...? We need to communicate to people that they really have an opportunity to work as long as they want and they are a valued part of society and the workforce.

[Dr. Martine Lagacé]

Thank you for that excellent question; it truly reflects the paradox of our society.

It is true that women can expect to live up to 85 years and men up to 79 years. Life expectancy is constantly going up. We can be proud of the medical advances and the fact that we can live ever longer and still have a good quality of life. Ironically, the social clock, meaning the expectations that we have in terms of people's social participation, is going backwards. So there are two different messages. On the one hand, the official message is: “Let's enjoy our extra years”. On the other hand, the message is: “Leave the workforce and retire”.

Freedom 55 really is a myth. Many people who retired when they were 55 actually returned to work—not full-time work, but part-time. That shows that work is not necessarily a burden. Your question is important because it has to do with people's attitudes and collective responsibility. That means that we must change the whole rhetoric around work. Work can be something meaningful and can be an enriching tool in the lives of those who wish to keep working.

Changing a rhetoric means changing the rhetoric of a government and researchers. As gerontology and psychology researchers, we too can sometimes be “ageists” without even realizing it. The media's rhetoric is also very “ageist”.

Your question deals with the rhetoric on ageing. How do we change that? I think awareness campaigns that promote work and ageing can start to change people's attitudes slowly but surely.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you.

Do I have time for one question?

I'd like to ask a little bit about this. In your opening statement, Madam Anson-Cartwright, you mentioned flexible work arrangements, and you talked a little bit about part-time and seasonal and maybe contracting and working out of the home. Is there any other thing you can add to that, other ways to make it convenient for people who are older to get into the workforce and be part of the workforce?

[Sarah Anson-Cartwright]

One other approach I've heard is that some companies have adopted alumni programs, where again they're looking to tap into previous, experienced employees who have retired, and they may want to bring them on for a short term, like six months or less, for a project. That's another opportunity, and again it could be for that knowledge transfer we talked about between the existing younger workforce, potentially, and the departed former employees. It can very much be project-based as well.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

May I ask another quick question?

In your experience, do older workers want to go back to work or find a job because of financial pressures, or is it just because they think it's a healthy part of their lifestyle to be working?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Give a short response, if you can.

[Sarah Anson-Cartwright]

Yes.

I think you heard some survey results in the testimony on Tuesday. I believe financial consideration was not necessarily the overriding reason, but of course we have a reality that after the recession many people lost a lot of savings. We have to recognize that the private sector half of employment is in small businesses. I expect a lot of those people are without their own sufficient savings.

There are a lot of implications on the financial side I think now in these recent years, and there's also a labour market reality where employers are looking to retain more and more workers. So there may be some demand and also supply opportunity for workers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that.

We will conclude with Mr. Cuzner.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you both for being here and for your testimony.

I want to pick up on something Ms. Anson-Cartwright mentioned in her comments, and it follows on an issue that my colleague Mr. Butt brought forward in the last round of witnesses. That's the disincentive for older workers who are receiving OAS and the 50% clawback.

I know that a number of years ago—I don't know if you were engaged at that time with the chamber—they did a lot of work on the underground economy and the impact of the underground economy. Would this have the potential of driving some work opportunities underground, if they say, “I'll come and work, but I don't want to lose any money from my OAS”? Do you see that potential?

[Sarah Anson-Cartwright]

Mr. Cuzner, unfortunately, I wasn't at the chamber, so I'm not aware of that work. I don't think I'm qualified to hazard a guess. I think we would need to look into that research. Perhaps it's an area....

I was referring to the 50% clawback associated with the GIS, not the OAS, just to clarify that. That is the guaranteed income supplement, as you know, for lower-income individuals.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

But you see that as a disincentive, though?

[Sarah Anson-Cartwright]

Do you mean the clawback?

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Yes.

[Sarah Anson-Cartwright]

Yes.

I just heard of an individual yesterday, an older person, who was offered a working opportunity, and he said, “Well, I can only earn a certain amount of income because I don't want to risk losing my GIS and my OAS.” The clawback was very real to him. He'd done his calculations. Fortunately, he found an arrangement, so he will be working up to a set number of hours.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I agree with you, and I see it as a disincentive as well, as did Mr. Butt.

I guess, by extension, those who aren't at a point where they're receiving OAS or GIS, if they're working.... Some people who are 55 years of age and older start to work and they're looking for flexible hours—as you both indicated—so some don't want to work full time. But what they see is that during their part-time work, if they're receiving an EI benefit at that juncture in their life and they take some part-time work, the first 50% of that is clawed back.

Would you see that as a disincentive as well for that age group, the working while claiming EI?

[Sarah Anson-Cartwright]

I don't think I could speak to that. I'd have to see how the mechanism works. I'm not familiar with how people's decisions might be made around that circumstance.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

I just see a commonality through that.

Mr. Chair, I'd say I probably have about 45 seconds left, so you can have that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Fair enough.

We thank you very much for being so very accommodating today and allowing us to hear from you in the fullness of your presentation. The committee will certainly take your remarks into account when they prepare the report. Again, thank you very much.

We'll suspend briefly, because we do have some committee business to deal with.