The federal government of Australia will provide a $1,000 bonus to employers that will hire people aged 50 and above to provide more employment opportunities to the older unemployed. It is in response to The Economic Potential of Senior Australians report submitted by a panel.

The payments will be limited to 10,000 employers on the condition that the hired worker must be for at least three months. Treasurer Wayne Swan, who will release the report on Wednesday, said the scheme is part of the Gillard government's effort to help older people to stay in the workforce if they need to.

"Older Australians have built up a lifetime of skills and experience and if these Australians want to stay in the workforce, we should do everything we can to help that happen.... It's all about giving older Australians more choice, and the opportunity for some extra financial security if they want to keep bringing home a paycheck in their later years," the treasurer said.

"Many senior Australians will prefer a quiet and well-earned retirement but many people prefer to stay connected to the workforce and this initiative will help do just that," Mr Swan said.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that on the average people between 45 and 54 are unemployed for 52 weeks while those 55 and above are jobless for 75 weeks.

The bonus, which will cost $10 million over four years, takes effect on July 1.

Employment Minister Bill Shorten said longer life expectancy, better health and reward for mental work over physical work favours employees staying longer in the workforce. He said Jobs Bonus will make it easier for companies to hire jobseekers with a lifetime of experience that could make valuable contributions to the firms.

"Australia is only going to prosper if we recognize the best attributes of mature-aged Australians. We are wasting good experienced talent by not harnessing them in every way we can," pointed out Everald Compton, the head of the panel that wrote the report.

One of the reasons behind the lesser preference for elder workers, besides their age, is that Australians companies are placing higher premium on personality than on experience. Hays Recruitment Director Nick Deligiannis said that the trend has been observed across a wide range of industries and even in jobs that require high skills such as project managers.

He explained that personality or being culturally fit meant that the prospective employee would have an entrepreneurial attitude, proper work-life balance, must be creative and can communicate with others.

"You can hire someone as a project manager for a big infrastructure project for example and a big portion of the success of that project will be how that person sells it throughout the business and communicates change," Mr Deligiannis was quoted by News.com.au.

Despite company preference for younger employees, a report released on Tuesday by the CEO Institute identified finding and keeping skilled young staff among the top five concerns of chief executives for the past 12 months.

"Our members are indicating the millennial generation just don't stay at companies too long.... This is really problematic in developing leadership and talent pipelines," The Sydney Morning Herald quoted CEO Institute spokesman Evan Davies.

He referred to members of Generation Y who were born between 1980 and 1999 and have started to be employed or have been part of the workforce for about a decade.

One sector in which workers, whether young or old, would find hard to be employed is the finance sector. A report by eFinancial Careers said job ads in the financial industry dipped 19 per cent for the first quarter of 2012. However, the report said there would still be pockets of hiring in the subsectors of financial planning and insurance which are short of candidates.

However, another study by Bankwest said Aussies businesses are actually suffering from skilled workers shortage. About 41 per cent of companies surveyed said it took them over three months to hire a fit staff compared to 12 months ago.

For jobseekers, the Bankwest report said high compensation packages and incentives were offered mostly by companies on the west coast, primarily in Western Australia and Queensland which are also the boom mining states.

RELATED STORIES