The average age of people in the Electricity, Gas and Water Supply industry is 41.2 years. The largest proportion of workers are in the 45 to 49 year age group (18.1 per cent), followed 40 to 44 years (16 per cent).
Many mature aged workers have acquired a wide range of skills and knowledge through work experience and application over a number of years. Yet these highly skilled workers often lack formal qualifications and are unrecognised or overlooked when promotional opportunities arise. Older workers may have never been involved in structured career or learning pathways, or participated in formal training since their school years. Fear of failure, fear of learning and fear of assessment are key considerations, with self-esteem and confidence a major issue for this age group
Mature aged workers themselves often see little value in the importance of qualifications or further training, particularly the relevance of training in their current employment, or in relation future job/career prospects and proportionate remuneration
A large emphasis on training of youth and new employees through apprenticeships and traineeships has meant that mature aged workers may have been overlooked because of lack of recognition for, or valuing of that particular sector of employees
