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Extending working lives in Europe: Employers´ opinions and actions
... Moreover, employers come to different conclusions when comparing older people's productivity with their labour costs. For example, Dutch employers are more doubtful whether the performance of older workers balances their labour costs than their Polish counterparts (Schippers et al., 2011). ...
This chapter discusses older people’s roles in the economy. It considers them in their role as workers who sell their manpower in the labour market, and as consumers who purchase goods and services. In Europe, the situation of older workers is currently strongly debated, and several governments have implemented reforms trying to encourage people to work until a later age. Older Europeans’ consumption patterns differ markedly from the ones of younger individuals, e.g. in that older people spend less money. Finally, this chapter discusses how the economic crisis might affect older Europeans.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to review good practice examples which promote recruitment and retention of older workers and/or the employability of workers as they age and to examine pathways of practice.
Design/methodology/approach
– Analysis of qualitative data, drawing on a cross‐section selection of 83 good practice case studies in labour organisations in eight European countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK.
Findings
– The study presented good practice examples and pathways of practice for the four most frequently found dimensions in the sample (training, lifelong learning and knowledge transfer; flexible working; health protection and promotion and job design; career development and mobility management) as well as examples from small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) (construction) and the public sector (transport) adopting strategies that fall within these dimensions. These examples show that innovative solutions to the challenge of an ageing workforce have been developed with good outcomes, often combining a number of measures, e.g. mobility management, health promotion and knowledge transfer. However, there is an uneven profile of age management debates and company strategies across Europe (with countries such as Germany and the Netherlands being more advanced). There is also some evidence of a standstill or roll‐back of measures during an economic crisis.
Originality/value
– The paper reviews organisational measures facilitating the extension of working lives, of which many are longstanding and include sectors previously underrepresented in good practice databases (SMEs, public sector).
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