Older Workers should be employed

This is an assignment given by my teacher. I have to assume I am a elderly worker who have to make a speech to the employers to encourage them to recruit more older workers in the workforce.

Good Morning ladies and gentlemen,

I am Jonathan Koh, a 51 year-old man, who worked in a bank for the past 30 years in the loans department. Recently, I have been retrenched. I have been looking for a job for the past 6 months.

Recently, there is an increasing number of retrenched older workers due to the economical downturn. Many of whom still need to work to support their family. Many companies still refuse to rehire these older workers despite the encouragement from the Ministry of Manpower. I am one of the victims too.

These are the possible reasons which I assume why employers are not engaging older workers:

(1)Older workers are harder to retrain. Their learning ability will be slower the older they get. The employers have to pay more to train them.

(2)Older workers are slower in their work compared to the younger ones. They will need more time to complete their assignments. The companies require good and efficient workers that can finish their work before the deadline.

(3) The older workers cannot work too long hours. They do not have energy to keep up with the younger and more efficient workers.

(4) Foreign workers are cheaper to employ and they are plenty and easily available. Furthermore, the government also encourage the employment of foreign workers during good times when it was hard to hire Singaporeans.

In order to encourage employers to employ older workers, I have a few suggestions that I hope the employers can take into consideration:

(1) Although it is harder to train the older workers, the government is already helping employers by giving 80% to 90% subsidy to the company to retrain the older workers during the difficult times. The employers will not have to pay as much and they will feel it is not a burden so employers will be more willing to employ older workers.

(2) The government is going to subsidise a portion of workers' salaries during difficult times. The employers will need to pay lesser to hire a person to do a job and will be encouraged to hire the older workers.

(3) First priority of simpler jobs like cleaning which Singaporeans used to shun should be given to the older Singaporean workers now instead of the foreign ones. The older workers will have an easier time looking for such jobs.

Last but not least, let us not forget the past contributions from these older workers. Singapore is so properous today is mainly due to their hard work. So I hope the the employers can look into my above suggestions

I thank you for your kind attention.