The Passing of Youth: How Removal of Traditional Youth Recruitment Policies Contributed to the Ageing of Public Service Workforces
Publication: LABOUR HISTORY A Journal of Labour and Social History
Number 101
Abstract
All OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) workforces are ageing, and the impending swag of retirements puts pressure on labour markets. I argue that demographic explanations of workforce ageing ignore the historical context in the public sector environment. This research explores the factors underpinning ageing public workforces, through a study of the Queensland public service. It finds that ageing public workforces are not a new or recent phenomenon, but occurred whenever there was a change in the traditional youth recruitment policies. These youth recruitment policies were temporarily relaxed during world wars and permanently removed in the 1970s. On each occasion, this led to an ageing of the public service workforce. Public service personnel agencies failed to predict this trend in the 1940s or the 1970s. This understanding of the relationship between recruitment policies and ageing public workforces should be factored into any attempts to address the age of public workforces.
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Endnotes
1.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Population by Age and Sex, Australian States and Territories, 3201.0, 2009,www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/3201.0;Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Ageing Populations: High Time for Action, a background paper presented at the Meeting of G8 Employment and Labour Ministers, 10-11March2005.
2.
Peter Cappelli, ‘Will there really be a labor shortage?’, Human Resource Management, vol.44, no.2, 2005, pp.143-49.
3.
Colin Hughes, The Government of Queensland,University of Queensland Press, 1980, p.205.
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W. Lawrence Neuman, Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches,Allyn andBacon, 2000.
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OECD, Ageing Populations;ABS, Population by Age and Sex, 2009.
6.
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7.
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8.
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9.
Ibid., p.23.
10.
Linda Colley andRobin Price, ‘Responding to an ageing workforce in an Australian state’, inDimitrios Koufopoulos, andMaria Argyropoulou(eds), Doing Business in the Global Economy,Athens Institute for Education and Research, 2009, pp.273-86;OECD, Ageing and the Public Service.
11.
SeeGerard Caiden, Career Service,Melbourne University Press, 1965;Linda Colley, ‘Approaches to the merit principle in Queensland Public Service recruitment: From rich and dumb to gender discrimination to politicisation?’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, vol.65, no.1, March2006, pp.146-60.
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14.
Northcote andTrevelyan, The Report on the Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service.
15.
Civil Service Act of 1889:Regulation for the Examination of Candidates for Admission to the Ordinary Division of the Civil Service,Queensland Government Gazette, 29March1890, pp.1121-23, r.4;Queensland Public Service Board, Report of the Public Service Board for the year 1911,Government Printer, 1911.
16.
Caiden, Career Service, p.25
17.
Hughes, The Government of Queensland.
18.
Colley, ‘Approaches to the merit principle’, p.49;Civil Service Act Regulation 1890();Civil Service Board (Queensland), Annual Report, 1890.
19.
Public Service Act Amendment Act 1901(), s.6.
20.
Queensland Parliamentary Debates, 24October1901, pp.1464-66.
21.
General Officers Association, The State Service, September1919;October1920;September1921.
22.
Public Service Act 1922 Regulations 1922-24();3rd Annual Report of the Public Service Commissioner for the year ended30June1923(), p.5.
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29.
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30.
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31.
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32.
Colin Hughes, The Government of Queensland;Public Service Commissioner (Queensland), Annual Report, 1968;Public Service Board (Queensland), Annual Reports, 1980, 1985
33.
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Public Service Board (Queensland), Annual Reports, 1980;1984;Office of Public Service Personnel Management (Queensland), Statistical Report, 1988.
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Biographies
Linda Colleyis a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Queensland. Her primary research interest is public sector employment relations, and the changing trajectory from the career service to contemporary employment arrangements. Her fellowship focuses on future challenges for public employment, such as ageing, capability and workforce planning.[email protected]
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LABOUR HISTORY A Journal of Labour and Social History
Number 101 • 1 November 2011
Pages: 177 - 193
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Copyright 2011 Australian Society for the Study of Labour History.
History
Published in print: 1 November 2011
Published online: 24 October 2022
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