Older people often have 'a more stable employment record'

14:30 28th January 2009

Older people are frequently more sought-after by employers as they often have "a more stable employment record" than their younger rivals.

Tom Schuller, director of the Independent Inquiry into the Future for Lifelong Learning sponsored by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace), said that older employees were far more likely to stay with a company on a long-term basis and so often represented a better investment.

He criticised the lacking of training opportunities for older people, however, with computer training and database administration courses often aimed primarily at younger employees and graduates.

Mr Schuller said: "There are public training programmes but most of those are aimed at younger people and actually the provision is very short."

The inquiry found that due to the growing number of older people in society, better training facilities would need to be provided to better utilise this workforce.

Around 128,000 private sector jobs were lost during the third quarter of 2008, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics.