Much has been written over the past few months about how COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the employment of younger and older workers alike.

Older workers who have been made redundant may face different challenges to younger ones though.

Age discrimination remains rife across the life-course, but older people may well find themselves more likely than younger to be a victim of unfavourable treatment in terms of recruitment and retention. And there is a huge body of evidence highlighting the challenges older people have getting back into work.

One solution is to invest in skills and learning across the life-course. The Government has recognised its importance:

• The Skills and post-16 Education Bill currently going through Parliament seeks to better engage employers in the skills agenda whilst also adapting the student loans system to give all adults access to a loan for higher education.
• The Governments Lifetime Skills Guarantee promises that 11 million people will be able to access a huge range of free Level 3 (A level equivalent) qualifications
• The Government’s Kickstart Scheme provides funding to create new jobs for 16 to 24 year olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long term unemployment. It provides Government-subsidised six-month workplace training

But while Government has recognised the importance of developing skills across the life-course, there are significant gaps in the opportunities we have to learn when we reach our mid-20’s, let alone our mid-40s.

Careers services are under pressure, under resourced and there is very little by the way of careers support for workers in mid-life and beyond.

Very few employers offer apprenticeships for people older than 25. Barclays led the way with their Bolder Apprenticeship for older workers, but few companies have followed.

Kickstart was a potentially important Government initiative to support the development of skills. But where is the Kickstart for people aged over 24.

The Skills Guarantee is a very important initiative and very welcome, but anyone who already has a Level 3 qualification can’t benefit from it.

For adults, much of the learning provision is supported via loans rather than grants. Evidence from the Student Loans system is that older people are less likely than younger to be willing to take on the risk of a loan.

And finally, informal adult learning is a great way into formal learning and skills for adults, but over recent decades publicly supported provision has been decimated.

With an ageing UK we need to skill up all ages. This includes adults and older workers? What then could be done?

• Companies could be incentivised and supported to follow the example of Barclays and introduce all age apprenticeships
• Employers could be given tax incentives to support learning and skills within their workforce
• Careers advice services could become more age neutral with a view to opening up current provision to all ages.

Lifelong learning will not only bring benefits to individuals themselves, by enabling them to financially support themselves for longer, but it can also help ensure economic sustainability and support people to age healthily.

Over the next year, we intend to explore how we can provide lifelong learning over longer lives.

We’d be interested in your thoughts. Do get in touch.

ILC’s Work for tomorrow programme is an international innovation competition, supported by the Innovation Resource Center for HR, which is be looking for innovations and policy ideas to respond to the opportunities and challenges of an ageing workforce. For more information, visit our competition page here.