Dot-coms looking to more over-50s, says report

Dot-com start-ups: need for knowledge from the over-50s

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The new e-economy is becoming more and more reliant on the over 50s because of their knowledge and business acumen, says a report published in the UK.

Youth and internet start-ups have become synonymous, but the future of the new economy depends on the over 50s, says the research paper published by The Industrial Society.

"Experience necessary -- the business case for wisdom," says that emerging evidence from the dot-com sector suggests that they are increasingly looking to older workers to help them make the transition from start-up to the longer term.

The report says the demand has created a group of "new elders" -- "healthy, wealthy and with a wisdom and strategic know-how that is making them indispensable to employers."

"Nowadays you don't get through the door with an Internet start-up unless you've got people on board who have run old economy businesses," the report's author, Charlotte Thorne, told CNN.com.

"The over-50s account for 80 percent of the UK's wealth," said Thorne. "Businesses are realising they must cash in."

The figures tell the story -- the employment rate among the over-50s in Britain is now growing at 2.4 percent a year compared with 1.1 percent among the general population.

It is the same in the rest of Europe and North America, says Thorne.

In the U.S. older Americans make up 10 percent of the nation's workforce, but account for 22 percent of the nation's job growth.

"In the last four years in Australia 360,000 jobs have been created -- three quarters of them for the over 45s. It is quite striking."

The Industrial Society's report reveals that businesses set up by people in their early 50s are twice as likely to survive as those established by people in their early 20s.

It also says that in the UK, the employment rate for women aged 50 or over has increased at almost three times the rate of the workforce as a whole.

The report identifies types of over 50s and why they are valuable to e-business. Top of the tree, it says, are "warhorses" -- seasoned campaigners with experience of previous economic cycles who aren't scared by economic downturns.

Another group cashing in are "trusted guides" -- older workers whose age and experience consumers trust over youth and enthusiasm.

Globalisation and the need for world-wide networks are bringing older people to the fore as "networkers," says the report.

This is particularly true in parts of Asia where, according to one employer, "veneration and respect for age is important, and counterparts find it more comfortable to build relationships with older business people rather than with young dot-com entrepreneurs."

Also in favour are "strategists." Ronald Cohen of Apax Partners, a venture capitalist firm with some $3 billion invested in the new economy confirms this saying, "young entrepreneurs are coming in and asking for experienced people. Increasingly they're realising that they need this to get the business to the stockmarkets."

Adds Thorne, author of the report, says: "Society and pressure groups have traditionally seen ageing as a time of loss and vulnerability, ignoring changing demographics and labour market trends which are making the over 50s a force to be reckoned with.

"The current requirement is for knowledge. What businesses are really after is wisdom and that puts older workers in pole position."

From CNN.com Europe

Blue-collar workers latest group to be sucked into the Web
June 6, 2000

The Industrial Society

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