With the Federal Government setting incentives of $10,000 to businesses to employ older workers, online outsourcing site Airtasker reports that older workers are being snapped up like hot property.
Airtasker, the online service used by tens of thousands of time poor Australian individuals and businesses to outsource odd jobs around the home and office, has found that while older workers are excluded from many workplaces, their skills and experience are being snapped up daily across the country on Airtasker.
One such worker is Rod Armstrong (pictured below), 60, a former Silicon Valley software engineer for 30 years, who struggled to get a job as he got older.
“Once they saw my age, that was it,” he told The Australian in a story published earlier in the week.
Now one of the most successful Airtasker workers, he earns about $800 a week doing Airtasker jobs ranging from handyman work in a bondage and discipline house to installing an iPod connection on a 1933 valve radio.
Age discrimination costs the Australian economy about $11 billion a year, according to the Age Discrimination Commissioner, Susan Ryan.
“At Airtasker we are trying to pioneer a new way to work where people of all ages are valued for the skills and experience they offer,” said Airtasker co-founder and CEO, Tim Fung.
“Recent research by Swinburne University found that ‘Seniorpreneurs’ are the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurship, and considered by experts and researchers as the next boom.”
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