Editorial | Use skills of older workers

Given Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ frequent suggestion that Jamaica might have to import workers to fill a growing labour shortage, Professor Denise Eldemire-Shearer’s latest intervention on the question of Jamaica’s ageing population is an opportunity for a robust discussion on the merit, or otherwise, of keeping older people in the workforce. This newspaper, as it has signalled in the past, supports both.

Unfortunately, despite the Government having, a year and a half ago, tabled a revised population policy, discussions around the greying of Jamaica still largely take place in silos, with the primary focus on the island’s low leverage of pension coverage and the economic hardships often faced by older Jamaicans when they no longer work. The Government’s White Paper should be urgently put before Parliament’s Economy and Production Committee for a review, to which key stakeholders, including groups that lobby for the welfare of older people, trade unions and the private sector, are invited to participate.

At the end of 2022, an estimated 570,000 Jamaicans, or approximately 21 per cent of the population, were in the 49-59 age group. And, as Dr Eldemire-Shearer, professor emerita at the Ageing and Wellness Centre, at The University of the West Indies, Mona, noted in an article in this newspaper on Sunday, by the middle of the century, that group will account for upwards of a quarter of the population. Additionally, people 65 and over, the so-called dependent elderly who now account for just under 10 per cent of the population, are expected t0 rise to over 11 per cent by 2030 – and maintain that trajectory.

FASTEST-RISING DEMOGRAPHIC

But, more critically, the elderly population – anyone 60 and over – is the island’s fastest-rising demographic group and is expected to maintain its annual average growth of 1.9 per cent into the 2030s.

There are several factors to note, and analyse, in a broader discussion.

In the normal course of things, this greying of Jamaica ought not, in the short term, to be a crisis, given its accompaniment by an increase in the ratio of the working-age population, or people in the 15 to 64 age range. They, at the start of the century, represented around six in 10 Jamaicans and were projected to peak at nearly 67 per cent of the population by 2015, falling back to 65.6 per cent at the start of the coming decade.

In other words, for the time being, there should be a large enough workforce to drive the economy and, in classic circumstances, finance the social safety net for the elderly.

That is not entirely the case.

For, while Jamaica last year reported a historic low unemployment rate of 4.5 per cent and the Government has floated the idea of importing labour, over 700,000 working-age people were outside the workforce. Notably, a huge chunk of this group is not people in school or other forms of educational training.

A mere fleeting glance at that statistic, without more, masks the longer-term demographic problem, which makes a discussion important and urgent on how older people with skills might be engaged.

Apart from the fact that people now live longer (life expectancy this year is projected at 75 years, against 67.7 years in 1970), the fertility rate among childbearing women has declined significantly in recent decades. That, combined with robust outward migration, has led to stagnation, or declines, in the population. The potential impact on the workforce is obvious.

HAVE MORE CHILDREN

One solution over the longer term is to encourage Jamaicans to have more children. But increasing the birthrate, currently hovering around replacement levels, would, Professor Eldemire-Shearer pointed out, have an impact on the labour force.

Which, in part, is why The Gleaner previously argued for retaining, or bringing back, older people with appropriate skills into the workforce. That can happen even while government policy seeks to rescue and prepare for jobs the more than 300,000 Jamaicans who have opted out of the workforce.

However, as Professor Eldemire-Shearer pointed out, that is not a straightforward matter. Ageism and resentments against older people are often present in workplaces.

Questions about the adaptability of older workers to new technologies also arise, which raises other issues such as continuous training (lifelong learning) for all workers. There are questions, too, of how workers who stay in jobs after retirement age, and those who come back, should be compensated. And how long they should remain.

These, however, are not problems beyond the capacity of creative thinkers to solve. Moreover, there is a basis upon which to start these discussions: the fact that large swathes of older people can perform effectively in complex jobs, of which there is evidence in Jamaica. Furthermore, the government, in 2018, increased the retirement age for public sector workers from 60 to 65, a process that should now be in full effect after a five-year transition period.

In Barbados, the pensionable age for benefits from that country’s National Insurance Scheme is now 67, and will increase by half a year in 2028. In 2034, it will move by another half a year to age 68. The clear presumption is that workers will still be in productive, paying jobs until those ages.

The conversation that started with the government’s pension reform should be resumed – and expanded.