Employment of Australian over-50s on the up

It looks like Australia is following the trend in the US with the recession hitting youth rather than 50-plus employment.

The Bureau of Statistics shows that the under 25s lost 91,500 full-time jobs in the year to February, people over 50 added 104,000 full-time jobs.

More unexpectedly, while the number of under-25s who were unemployed or out of the workforce shot up by 129,000 over the year, the number of over-50s unemployed, retired or taking time out shrank by 3000.

Why the surge in 50-plus employment? Is it to replenish their coffers, badly hit by the plunging stock market and interest rates, or to pay for their unemployed kids? Dick Stroud