And when economic downturns happen, job losses quickly follow. Often, it's older people who find themselves suddenly out of work, in a tight jobs market where many others have also lost their jobs in similar industries.

Incentives for employers to look for young people to fill vacancies makes it even tougher.

Reskilling can be a drawn-out process with no guarantee of a job at the end.

Add in Tasmania's constrained rental market where prices are rising rapidly above the consumer price index, or the inability to meet mortgage repayments, and the spectre of homelessness looms large.

The warning signs for homelessness among older people - and particularly women aged over 50 - have been getting stronger every year, and will certainly be exacerbated by the COVID downturn.

This year, a Parliamentary Budget Office paper showed that women over 50 made up about 20 per cent of recipients of Newstart or its equivalent in 2019 - up from just 5 per cent in 2001.

It represented a significant shift in the constitution of Australia's unemployed cohort away from younger men towards older women.

And, again, another report - this time from the Australian Alliance for Social Enterprise at the University of South Australia - has highlighted a continuing increase in the number of homeless older Tasmanians, including a 31 per cent increase for those aged 65 to 74 from 2011 to 2016.

Every person who is homeless is an indication of a failure in government policy.

As COVID put a wrecking ball through the Australian economy, the federal government looked to lend a hand to a range of groups. But women aged over 50 were largely left out, considered one of the biggest losers from the last budget.

The aged pension was forgotten about, and soon those on JobSeeker could join them back at pre-COVID levels.

It's a complex issue to bring older Australians back into the workforce, or at least provide enough support to offer the dignity that we all expect in life, but current approaches are not working.