New Zealand’s workforce is ageing. At the time of the 2001 Census, 48% of the total labour force was aged 40 plus, and this had risen to 52% by 2006. The proportions aged 55 plus grew from 14% to 18% over the 2001-2006 period. By 2012, the median age of the labour force is projected to reach 42. Skills and labour shortages are emerging, with serious economic implications if measures are not taken to improve labour force participation rates and to increase productivity. Projections by Treasury indicate that there will be a slowing in labour force growth in the coming decades, due to population ageing and declining birth rates. The growth rate is expected to become negative by the 2020s, as large numbers of baby boomers exit the workforce.

In a paper for the Employment of Older Workers Summit in September 2006, Judy McGregor, Human Right Commissioner, cited figures to show that significant increases in participation rates for workers aged 55 plus will be required to maintain the size of the labour force, even without an allowance for growth. The Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS) shows that there has been an upturn in participation rates for men and women aged 60 to 64 and 65 plus, since the 1990s. According to HFLS figures for December 2006, 73.1% of men and 50.6% of women aged 60 to 64 were in the labour force. The corresponding percentages for people aged 65 plus were 19.5% and 9.4%.

A recent Department of Labour report estimates that older people represented half of labour force growth in New Zealand over the period 1991 to 2005. The number of people in the labour force aged 50 plus more than doubled from 267,000 in June 1991 to 547,000 in June 2005. In addition to overall change in the age structure of the population, policy adjustments – increasing the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation and the prohibition of compulsory retirement under the Human Rights Act, 1993 - contributed to this change. Further details on these options and examples of overseas initiatives are available in Maximising the Potential of Older Workers

This research aims to explore the attitudes of employers to ageing workforce issues and to find out what actions and adjustments are already being made to meet the challenges. It is a joint project by the Institute for Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington and the New Zealand Institute of Management (NZIM). Stage 1 was a postal survey of NZIM members, conducted in mid-2007. Stage 2 consisted of 20 face-to-face interviews with respondents from Stage 1. More details of the methodology are provided in Appendix 1.

This is the Stage 1 and 2 Report