Where are the job inspectors?

Another heart-rending story in the Guardian this week featuring the plight of the unemployed over 50s. The story focused on a few particular life stories to highlight that:

“for those over 50 and out of work there is little sign of any recovery in job prospects. Yesterday’s official data showed 21,000 more over-50s joined the long-term unemployed in the three months to February. In total, 143,000 people in that age bracket were out of work for more than 12 months – the highest total since the summer of 1998.”

56-year-old IT professional Kevin Forbes lost his job at a City investment bank five years ago and has been out of work ever since. In the meantime he has applied for 4,700 jobs and been invited to just two interviews.

So what’s going on? Bearing in mind that the economy has not been in recession for all that time and that Kevin’s story is a disturbingly common example of the situation of many older people, the answer has to be ageism and discrimination by employers against older people.

Such attitudes, as we know, are deep-seated, often unconscious and almost impossible to legislate against. What is needed is a greater awareness of the realities of the situation and some practical suggestions of how things might be improved.

On TV we currently have the Business Inspector and have had a succession of Hotel and Country House Inspectors and the like in shows where real, experienced entrepreneurs point out to failing businesses the error of their ways and strategies for improvement. Such shows are lightweight entertainment with the facts presumably being heavily edited for ultimate “good TV”. However, they can be thought-provoking.

Perhaps something similar featuring case studies where real unemployed older people come up against real employers while being mentored by a real HR professional or manager would be helpful in demonstrating the reality of the situation to employers and job-seekers alike and what both sides might do to help overcome it.

It’s not much of a suggestion, but God knows, something has to be done to bring about attitudinal change.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/21/unemployment-case-study-harlow

The voice of older people says goodbye

At 77, Dame Joan Bakewell is retiring from her role as the first official Voice of Older People.

She’s done a good job, not least by demonstrating that at 77 she is more on the ball than most people several decades younger.

In a recent article in the Daily Telegraph explaining her decision she focuses on a couple of our own pet themes: the way that older politicians and policy makers refer to older people as “they” rather than “we”, and society’s lack of an adequate vocabulary to describe what it means to be older these days:

“…when writing or speaking, I quite legitimately referred to “us” rather than “them”. It was quite an important subliminal change. Too many documents, statements and articles had talked of the old as a separate enclave of society, a definable group to be lumped together as one order, rather as David Attenborough might refer to apes. As discussions and public debate have become more widespread, the shift in vocabulary has mattered, an indication that the old are speaking out more than ever for themselves and being heard.”

Dame Joan’s belief is that following Wales and Northern Ireland the country now needs a Commissioner for Older People, someone with a full-time professional job and accompanying back-up and funding. My heart sinks at the thought. A Commissioner for anything seems to represent endless bureaucracy, political correctness, and the expenditure of vast amounts of money to achieve very little.

Nevertheless, older people should have a voice particularly in light of the fact that according to a recent Age UK survey 78% of the over 60s feel that older people are ignored by society. 

Joan believes that the focus from now on will be different: “…as we see the Equalities Act take effect, we move into an era of implementation and action.” Nice to believe, but I’m not convinced. Plenty more needs to be said on behalf of older people before we’ll get that far.

My suggestion is to replace Joan with the admirable Joanna (Lumley) and build on what has already been achieved.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7599429/Im-off-but-my-role-has-come-of-age.html

Motivating mankind

I was intrigued to come across the male style and grooming website mankind www.mankind.co.uk.  I’m all in favour of anything that encourages stylishness in men, particularly those who are in their prime – some of whom could be quite a bit more primetastic than they are if they paid a bit more attention to personal grooming.

Anyway, I clicked on to see what it was about. Predictably it is very much geared to the younger alpha male, although there is one current article featured for older men: Agebusters – products that can help prevent and/or alleviate some of the signs of ageing.

So it’s worth a look on that basis (although product efficacy must be taken with the same pinch of salt as women’s anti-ageing products, one presumes).

But their choice of visuals isn’t good.

Okay, the main picture is presumably meant to be a joke, while the only other one shows a bloke who appears to have the same premature grey hair problems as Philip Schofield.

Where are the inspirational pictures of real, ageing men? Surely there’s nothing more motivating that seeing someone of your own age or thereabouts who looks great and thinking “I could look a bit more like that if I took the trouble”.

It works for women. And heck, there’s no shortage of really good looking older men out there to use as models. It might help them win more female visitors to the site, if nothing else.

Ban the bus pass

National news this morning:  as a result of “little publicised changes made by Alistair Darling in last autumn’s pre-budget report” (Daily Mail), pensioners will now have to wait longer for their free bus pass. 

Apparently eligibility is now being brought into line with the new later retirement age for women which is now being incrementally introduced. Both men and women will now qualify for the bus pass at the age at which women qualify for a state pension.

It would appear that yes, the government have been somewhat “sneaky” about the change, but “c’est la vie”. What is worse is that they have apparently denied reports that bus passes are to be scrapped or means tested.

For goodness sakes.  Apparently this simple delay to eligibility for the bus pass will save over a billion pounds in the next five years. How much more money to devote to pensions, jobs and other useful areas of expenditure could be saved if this outmoded and demeaning handout was ditched?

So the message to the government is  – Do it – immediately. Win some votes: improve pensions overall and let people pay their own bus fares. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265287/Pensioners-face-year-wait-bus-pass-sneaky-rule-change.html

Working at 90

A heartening and heart-warming news story in The Lawyer magazine this week about Reg Frary, 90 years old and still working as a proofreader for London law firm, Taylor Wessing.

Frary is known as the ’master of spelling and grammar’ and anybody at the firm can go to him with any sort of document for checking.

Despite having to get up at 5am every day to get to work for 7.30am, he loves his job: “I like working with the trainees because they’re such wonderful, bright young people,” he says.”I learn a lot from them, but they’ll often come to me with grammatical questions.”

“It’s not their fault because they just haven’t been taught basic grammar at school, so I like to help them along and teach them myself.”

When asked about the future, he is optimistic of continuing: “I’m going to keep eating my porridge every morning and ­coming into work to meet all these lovely people. Your feet go first when you get older, but I’ve still got my brain.”

Splendid.  If only more older employees were so positive about their situation and their employers so enlightened about their contribution…

To access the article: http://www.thelawyer.com/the-oldest-proofreader-in-town/1003988.article

I’ve led such an interesting life

The extent to which as human beings we all view ourselves and our lives as being really special and important, despite the ant-like nature of our existence, has always interested me.

Obviously a lot of other people don’t seem to pick up on this dichotomy - as this short excerpt from Writing Magazine (April 2010 issue) illustrates:

 Amanda Ross, creator of the Richard and Judy Book Club offering advice about writing…

“Don’t write autobiography unless you really have led a truly unique life. I can’t tell you the number of manuscripts I have been sent by middle-aged men who think that they are incredibly fascinating. A lot are chief executives, putting their mid-life crisis down in a novel. Well, I’ve got news for you: most middle-aged men go through the same thing so unless you are going to do a fantastic Nick Hornby twist on it, don’t do it.”