TMS Asia-Pacific General Manager Australia/NZ, Fujio Shibata has urged local industry employers to take a leaf out of their Singaporean counterparts’ book and start looking beyond the Gen Y factor as their prime source of employees.

Mr Shibata said huge efforts continue to be expended on a local basis in trying to understand, recruit and retain younger generation staffers.

This, he said, was a very different picture from the Singapore model where a recently released Ministry of Manpower survey shows the employment rate for older residents aged 55 to 64 years rose to 59 per cent in 2010.

“It’s a similar picture with employers, particularly in the country’s burgeoning hospitality and tourism sector, that allow their employees to work past retirement (in Singapore it is 62 years).

“The MOM survey showed the number of companies making sure they retain their older staff increased significantly from 64 per cent in 2009 to 77 per cent in 2010.

“Given the number of Australian workers aged 55 and over is expected to jump by some 15 per cent within the next two years, the over 55’s represent one of the best available sources of candidates for years to come.

Mr Shibata said the Australian travel and hospitality industry still leaned too heavily towards recruiting younger staff.

“In doing so it is overlooking a massive pool of potential employers, many of who are already trained and able to hit the ground running given the appropriate opportunity.

“As importantly, the over 55’s are extremely flexible and are more than happy to take on part time roles and/or work from home which obviously represents considerable reductions in overall operational costs.

”The older population is growing faster than all other age groups and is projected to continue doing so.

”Employers really do need to start looking beyond candidates starting out in their careers as the only source of talent.”

“Many of these, aside from offering an excellent source of ready-to-go, highly experienced employees, also represent prime candidates to place in roles proving difficult to fill in the current ‘war for talent’ environment.