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CHAPTER 7
Learning, work and later life in the UK: guidance needs of an ageing workforce 139

placement. For very small employers, who lack the time and skills to undertake
such conversion training, the result was a supply of well-informed applicants
with motivation, and a relevant basis of skills and knowledge, which could then
be built on through learning on the job (Wilson, 2010), and a chance to try
them out in the workplace before making an employment decision. A parallel
programme, which offered 1 000 people in work after 50 a careers guidance
interview, linked to the offer of short targeted training, found very positive
responses from both employees and employers: employees were pleased that
someone was offering them personalised advice on their careers, and
employers reported improved productivity and motivation (McNair, 2008).
An alternative strategy, especially for older professionals, has been self-
organised groups (jobclubs) which provide a peer group for moral support and
encouragement, and help build networks within the community to find jobs
which (like many in the labour market) are never advertised, but recruited by
word of mouth (Wilson, 2010).

7.10. Implications for careers guidance

There are clearly significant inefficiencies in the older labour market. Despite
growing labour shortages faced by employers, many older people leave the
market earlier than they would like, either because they fail to find work
rewarding, or because they are driven out through redundancy, and unable to
return.
It is against this background that we need to consider guidance and older
people. One might expect that guidance could help:
(a) people in the third age (broadly from 50 to 75+) who wish to continue to
contribute to society through paid or unpaid work;
(b) employers, who will increasingly need to retain older workers, in face of
labour shortages, as supply of young entrants shrinks;
(c) those experiencing age discrimination, which remains a powerful force
excluding people from paid work, especially in recruitment;
(d) people whose talents and changing aspirations are not being recognised
by their employers;
Careers guidance and vocational training exist to help overcome such
market failure, but have not, to date, been systematically deployed to do this.
However, the UK government has been planning a new careers service for
some years. Following the general election of 2010, policy changed, and the
planned adult guidance service is now to be an all-age one. The plan is to