Despite the reluctance of some employers to hire older workers, 77 per cent of employers in the MAX Solutions study said they believed that mature-age employees bring valuable skills to the company.

“Whilst employers say older people have skills, the research suggests they are not prepared to hire people in the 50- to 65-year-old age group,” she says.

Ms Lamb said one of the biggest challenges mature-age jobseekers faced was a lack of self-confidence when experiencing unemployment.

“We often see older candidates being too modest at the interview stage or uncertain about how their previous skills are transferable to a different industry or position,” she said. “However, we know first-hand that they bring significant value to the workplace and are highly adaptable.”

MAX Solutions commissioned Decibel Research to conduct an online survey of 500 Australian employers. MAX Solutions also surveyed 735 mature age job candidates from its customer base in July.

The study found 85 per cent of MAX’s mature age customers believe employers often have some reluctance or uncertainty when hiring older people.

The research revealed more than half of employers said they found mature-age workers to be more skilled compared to their younger peers in areas including dispute resolution (57 per cent), mediation (55 per cent) and managing others (55 per cent).

For 60 per cent of employers surveyed, the main benefit they received from mature age workers was their “wealth of experience”, followed by “maturity and stability” (48 per cent) and “reliability and dependability” (43 per cent).

While many employers had assumed digital literacy was often a challenge for mature-age workers, 7 in 10 employers found older workers learned new digital and IT skills as quickly or more quickly than they expected. And while 65 per cent of employers surveyed have a diversity and inclusion policy, only 40 per cent said they were actively taking steps to attract and retain older workers.

Chief executive at The Council on the Ageing Ian Yates said that 62 per cent of employers surveyed had considered making changes to accommodate older workers.

“Adding ‘mature age workers’ to an organisation’s diversity and inclusion policies will help ensure employers are regularly thinking about what they can do to attract and retain older workers into their teams,” he said. “Even small businesses can make a change by removing ‘date of birth’ from job application forms.”

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Jacqueline King from MAX Solutions Batemans Bay said Mr Smith’s employer “wasn’t after people of a particular age – he wanted someone who would turn up every day and do the job well. He was very open-minded about hiring a mature-age worker”.

“The challenge for Martin as an older worker is the same thing that many mature-age job candidates struggle with; he’s very modest, and isn’t in the habit of discussing his skills. Many older job candidates really find it hard to ‘sell’ their skills and experience to potential employers,” Ms King said.

“We worked with Martin to help him clearly articulate his particular skills and the benefits of his long experience in the industry. Beyond that, we helped him demonstrate the excellent qualities he has that are also common amongst older workers – such as being deeply reliable, and very keen to get in there and do the work to an extremely high standard. The value of those soft skills really can’t be over-estimated for employers.”