It seems right around the country and across industries, the cries are the same – there's not enough workers.
With the country's unemployment rate hovering at historic lows, the booming jobs market is enticing older Australians to retrain, in the hope of increasing their employability.
At the start of the pandemic, Jeremey Murray found the company he was working for was struggling to survive.
Not content to stay on JobKeeper, and finding it hard to find another role in the corporate world — which he puts down in large part to his age — the 56-year-old decided to swap spreadsheets for baking sheets.
"I thought, 'well, I've always loved to bake, I've always loved to cook, why don't I see if I can make it a career?'"
Mr Murray signed up to an 18-month patisserie training course. He still has a few more theory units to go, but is already successfully running a baking business from home, which he supplements with casual work at catering companies.
"They're crying out for pastry chefs, they're crying out for chefs. So in many ways I get to choose where I want to work," he said.
He's part of a growing number of Australians re-skilling and pivoting careers later in life.
Huge spike in mature age apprentices
In Western Australia, which has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, more than 4,000 of the state's apprentices and trainees are currently over the age of 45 – a figure that's more than doubled in the past two years.
It's a similar story nationally, with more than 39,000 mature-age apprentices and trainees, up more than 70 per cent from before the pandemic.
Researchers say this should come as little surprise as older generations have proven their adaptability.
"This is the generation that really innovated a lot of those changes in the workforce that we're now reaping the benefit of," explained Amanda Davies, head of UWA's School of Social Sciences.
"When we look at the baby boomer cohort, it's distinctly different from previous generations that may have stayed in a job or had the attitude of staying in one sector of employment for a very long time," Professor Davies said.
"We already have 20 years or so of data that shows that the baby boomer generation have led the way in having multiple careers across their working life."
Pandemic forced people to reassess careers
Sally Mlikota runs a recruitment agency in Cairns. She says around half of the people looking for work on her books are over 45 years old, a number that has increased since the start of the pandemic.
Many of those mature-age workers are taking advantage of government schemes and other resources to upskill and pivot.
"We're not talking about someone who's been a baker all their life, all of a sudden becoming an accountant," Ms Mlikota said.
"We're talking about someone who's perhaps worked in an office, but never specialised in finance, or they might have been a teacher and they've got the communication skills and they're adapting to work in an office."
Ms Mlikota says the pandemic forced many to reassess their careers, and their retirements.
"You had a really low interest rate, so people's pensions weren't paying as much as they were hoping," she said.
"Plus, people get bored quite quickly and want to get back into work."
Ageism still rife, despite skills shortage
Despite this willingness and desire for older Australians to retrain and stay in the workforce, reports of ageism are rampant.
Mr Murray says he encountered it when he was looking for work, despite being highly experienced and having three degrees.
"They're too clever to ever say 'you're too old' because it's against the law to say that, but you can pick it up in the body language," he said.
"There's a lot of anecdotal evidence, but what we do see is people being underemployed, and that is an indicator that it's still a significant issue," Professor Davies said.
But researchers and recruiters say ignoring this cohort of potential workers comes at the detriment of businesses and the economy.
"There's a lot of benefits of taking on someone more mature," Ms Mlikota said. "Sweeping statement here, but they tend to be more reliable."
Professor Davies warns our ageing population exacerbates the issues of overlooking older workers.
"We're going to lose knowledge and skill sets from the workforce and it's difficult to see how that can be replaced very meaningfully."
Flexibility key to retaining older workers
Recruiters and researchers say a key way of keeping older people engaged in the workforce is to provide flexibility.
"We've seen a lot of workplaces transition to enable people to work from home or to work part time, those sorts of mechanisms will really help enable older workers to remain very active in the workforce and engaged in meaningful work," Professor Davies said.
Ms Mlikota says recruiters can also help mature-age job seekers position themselves to increase their chances of being hired but agrees employers also need to be more flexible.
"You're going to have to be a bit more adaptable, and you're going to have to keep up with the times, otherwise your business is going to be the one missing out."
For Mr Murray, he says while it can be frightening to take the plunge and start again at an older age, he'd encourage others to do the same, as he hasn't looked back.
"There's still challenges ahead but I'm enjoying what I'm doing, so you can't ask for much more."
