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Trends focused on this issue. According to DARES, it is mainly in the industry, building, finance and property sectors that thinking, if not action, is going on with regard to the issue of older workers and, within these sectors, only in large establishments with an ageing personnel which have undergone some technical or organisational upheaval. In these establishments, measures to encourage careerend part-time working are emerging, together with, in an as yet very marginal way, a genuine Human Resources policy in respect of older employees, such as the agreement on the “valorisation of experience and career-ends” signed in late 2001 at THALES, systematically introducing a career evaluation at age 45, which may lead to an entitlement to one hundred and twenty hours of training. Increasingly, the occupational sub-sector bodies most affected by the ageing of the population are attempting progressively to modify the behaviour of their members in terms of age management. In an agreement of January 2001, the French Banking Association (Association Française des Banques or AFB) called on its members to avoid any early retirement before the age of 58, whereas employees could previously expect to benefit from such arrangements from the age of 50. Nevertheless, alongside these good practices, the introduction of time-savings accounts within companies, which allows employees to “save up” the hours worked in excess of the thirty-five hour week and deduct these from their working life, is a measure directed toward shortening working life rather than extending it. Conclusions In this way, the current political framework and the actual practices met with in companies send out relatively contradictory messages. At any rate, those messages are not sufficiently clear to bring about a marked change in behaviour or create a different attitude to workers aged over 50. This is, admittedly, a delicate subject, since there is a strong social consensus in this area: “in the 1980s, early retirement was experienced as redundancy, whereas it is now claimed as an established right.” The reform of the pensions system will probably be crucial, then, in the future development of activity rates of older workers, but we may nonetheless regret that it is not accompanied by parallel messages aimed at shifting public opinion on this subject in a more positive direction than the mere question of the funding of pensions. This is an issue that will play a major role in our future development. Sandrine Gineste Bibliography INSEE, “Projections de population active: un retournement progressif” (Collection INSEE Premières), March 2002. – “Enquête sur l’emploi de mars 2002” (Collection INSEE Premières), July 2002. – “La population de la France métropolitaine en 2050: un vieillissement inéluctable”, Economie et Statistiques, December 2002. – “Projections de population active en 2050: l’essoufflement de la croissance de ressources en main d’œuvre”, ibid. DARES, “Moins de préretraites en 2001”, Premières informations, premières syntheses, January 2003; – “Les préretraites: un outil important de gestion des âges”, ibid., November 2002; – “les entreprises se préoccupent peu du vieillissement démographique”, ibid., April 2002 ; – “le papy-boom renforce l’activité des seniors”, ibid., April 2002; – “l’âge des salariés joue surtout à l’embauche”, ibid.; – “bilan des préretraites et des mesures en faveur des chômeurs ages”, ibid., January 2002; – “les quinquagénaires entre l’activité et la retraite”, ibid., October 2001. All the above articles are available on line on the website of the French Ministry of Social Affairs. OFCE, France, “2000-2040: population active et croissance”. Caisse Nationale d’assurance Maladie, Retraite et société, issues 36 et 37. Conseil Economique et Social, Dynamique de la population active et emploi : la gestion prévisionnelle des âges, Paris, 2000. This document, known as the Quintreau Report, is available on line at the CES website. Chambre de commerce et d’industrie de Paris, commission du travail et des questions sociales, Rapport pour la suppression de la contribution Delalande,Paris, 2001. Commissariat Général du Plan, Avenir des métiers, rapport du groupe “prospective des métiers et des qualifications”, Paris, November 2002. Available on-line at the CGP site. Journées d’étude du CEREQ, La mobilité professionnelle des salariés âgés analysée à travers les DADS,May 2002. Conseil d’analyse économique, Reports and letters. Lettres de l’Observatoire des Retraites (bi-annual newsletters). 84 Spring 2003 | European Employment Observatory Review
Germany 1 Introduction As far back as the mid-1960s, the first structural crisis of the postwar years occurred in the mining industry, and was primarily overcome via the retirement of older workers from working life. This model of crisis management was gradually adopted, first by other sectors and then for the economy as a whole. While at first it was only a question of avoiding open unemployment in individual regions and sectors, in the early 1980s state-subsidised early retirement was passed off as an instrument supporting the integration of age groups with a high birth rate. “Older people are going and freeing up jobs for young people” – this social benefit was the main reason for subsidising the early retirement of older workers from companies. Almost all large companies, and not simply those that were in difficulties, took advantage on a large scale of the opportunity to rejuvenate their workforces with state aid. The push for early retirement was so strong that in the sectors in crisis, mining and steel, the average age actually fell below the average for the economy as a whole, and was well below the average for these sectors in other EU countries (Auer 1992). The logic behind the public subsidy, “young for old”, was undeniable. Even at times of crisis, unemployment rates among young people in Germany did not reach the same high levels as in many neighbouring countries. As a result of opening up of company labour markets to young people, in the past 30 years the youth unemployment rate has remained, with only minor variations, at the same level as the general unemployment rate1 .However, this does not mean that promotion of the retirement of older workers automatically opens up the way to the employment of young people. This was only the case in Germany because the dual system of vocational training, through which almost two-thirds of all young people pass, constitutes a way of recruiting skilled young workers that is also attractive to companies (Bosch 2000). In the 1960s and the early 1970s, the practice of early retirement in Germany was unpopular with many of those involved. They felt that they were being pushed out of working life early and discriminated against. This changed in the next few decades, when the early retirement terms were attractive and there were ever more examples showing that meaningful use could be made of this status. Early retirement became one of the most popular ways of shortening working life, and this is still the case today. It was not employees, unions or employers’ associations who criticised this means of shortening working life. It was only the financing problems experienced by pension funds that undermined this general social consensus on early retirement practice. It had long been clear that the ageing of the population would cause problems for the funds. The old-age dependency rate, i.e. the ratio of over-65s in the population to all those of working age, had significantly worsened in Germany since 1990. In 1990 it was 21.6%, in 1995 22.5%, and in 2001 it was 24.5%. It is expected to rise to 30.3% by 2010 (EUROSTAT 2002); this will be the second-highest level in the EU, second only to Italy. The sharp drop in the Spring 2003 | European Employment Observatory Review 85 Trends employment rate of older workers and the fact that this was partly financed by pension funds led to the early occurrence of demographically based financing problems. Over the past ten years, little consistency has been apparent in German policy on the employment of older workers. Problems with financing retirement provision have led to recurring calls for increased participation of older people in working life. In fact, a change of policy was introduced, with a rise in retirement age, a less financially attractive structure for early retirement, and promotion of employment of older workers. On the other hand, the current labour market problems have constantly caused the players involved to use early retirement as a tool for preventing open unemployment. This applied to Eastern Germany in particular, where the impact of restructuring on a scale never seen before was cushioned by the retirement of older workers from working life. The main reason for these inconsistencies is the fact that the constant predictions of demographically based bottlenecks on the labour market have not so far been fulfilled and, according to all current forecasts, unemployment will remain high until 2020 (Kistler/Huber 2001). In its new report, Prognos predicts an unemployment rate of 8.9% in 2010 and of 6.6% in 20202 (Prognos 2002: 90). However, it is harder to implement a change of policy with high unemployment than with full employment. Even with full employment, it is conceivable that in view of the pronounced early-retirement mentality, in the event of a shortage of skilled workers Germany would rely on immigration rather than an increase in the employment rate of older workers. 2 Trends and developments on the labour market 2.1 Activity rates among older workers, 1972-2020 A marked decrease in economic activity can be identified among men aged 60-65 in particular. The activity rate of older workers has halved in comparison with the early 1970s. Only some 80% of 55 to 60-year-old men and only one third of 60 to 65-year-old men are still economically active. As Figure 1 shows, in the 1990s, in Western Germany in particular, there was a further marked reduction in the activity rate of older workers, which came into line with the level in Eastern Germany. The trend is less clear for women. The overall increase in the tendency for women to work has compensated for the effects of early retirement among women aged 55-60. The activity rate for this age group has increased in both Eastern and Western Germany. In the 60-65 age group (Figure 2), there has been a slight increase in the activity rate among East German women and a further drop in the case of West German women. Here, it should be noted that activity rates include the unemployed. Many of the older unemployed people are waiting, in some cases with support from company social plans, to retire early from working life. Owing to high unemployment among older workers, employment rates are also much lower than activity rates. In 2001, 37.7% of 55 to 64-yearolds in Germany were employed (women 29.5%) (EUROSTAT 1 In other EU countries, for the most part the youth unemployment rate has been and remains well above the general unemployment rate (Bosch 2000). 2 These are unemployment rates based on national statistics. The standardised figures for the EU are lower than the German figures. In 2002, the unemployment rate in Germany was 9.8% in accordance with the na-tional definition and 8.2% in accordance with the EU definition (BA 2003).
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Employment & European Social Fund E
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European Employment Observatory Rev
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Table of Contents Policies Overall
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AUSTRIA The programme of the Austri
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FINLAND Essential changes to legisl
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At least one quarter of the members
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in the event of a third and subsequ
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of active labour-market policy, as
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Training Networks Programme The Tra
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Subsequently, the provisions concer
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a strengthening and revitalisation
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workers into the labour market as w
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This reinforced targeting and resul
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BELGIUM The Occupational Immersion
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Agreement on converting 10,000 subs
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outplacement procedure, its duratio
Page 33 and 34: Integration agreements Another impo
Page 35 and 36: and local job and volunteering oppo
Page 37 and 38: FINLAND Preliminary information on
Page 39 and 40: BELGIUM Harmonisation and simplific
Page 41 and 42: • Returning migrants Eligibility
Page 43 and 44: Playing the generation game: an ove
Page 45 and 46: workers, who have either exited the
Page 47 and 48: e) Finland’s comprehensive approa
Page 49 and 50: Compared with the figures for 1997,
Page 51 and 52: Table 4: Activity quotas by age and
Page 53 and 54: Table 6: Length of unemployment by
Page 55 and 56: 4Prospects In view of the demograph
Page 57 and 58: and is exempted from the obligation
Page 59 and 60: The Government is also addressing t
Page 61 and 62: permanente, 97-124 Desmet, R. and J
Page 63 and 64: Table 4: Breakdown by age of older
Page 65 and 66: Figure 1: Gender gap in the activit
Page 67 and 68: Figure 5: Effective and statutory r
Page 69 and 70: 3. Recent trends in policies As alr
Page 71 and 72: 3.3 Labour market programmes for el
Page 73 and 74: Figure 1: Population aged 15 and ov
Page 75 and 76: Table 3: Labour market transition r
Page 77 and 78: companies. One of these projects wa
Page 79 and 80: Table 2: Projection of the economic
Page 81 and 82: Table 8: Numbers entering Early Ret
Page 83: Figure 1: Rate of access to trainin
Page 87 and 88: Figure 3: Potentially economically
Page 89 and 90: Figure 5: Take-up of early-retireme
Page 91 and 92: Figure 8: Average amounts paid unde
Page 93 and 94: 64.5% (Hain/Tautz 2001: 365) withou
Page 95 and 96: Table 6: Collectively agreed workin
Page 97 and 98: Strukturbruch und Arbeitsmark-tentw
Page 99 and 100: men (Figure 3). In clear contrast w
Page 101 and 102: Figure 5: Unemployment rates, males
Page 103 and 104: More recent data, provided by Euros
Page 105 and 106: pensions retracted to normal levels
Page 107 and 108: Ireland 1. Introduction This Paper
Page 109 and 110: Table 3: Labour force trends, 1991-
Page 111 and 112: Table 4: Employment by age across s
Page 113 and 114: Occupational pensions There are als
Page 115 and 116: Italy 1. Introduction The EU offici
Page 117 and 118: Table 7: Activity rates (age 55-64)
Page 119 and 120: Table 10: Forecasts of employment r
Page 121 and 122: should take the territorial imbalan
Page 123 and 124: 2. Statistical Data 5 Number of pen
Page 125 and 126: 4.2 Measures to encourage older wor
Page 127 and 128: 6. Conclusions With regard to keepi
Page 129 and 130: level. No taxes and social premiums
Page 131 and 132: edundancy scheme by employers. The
Page 133 and 134: uittreding: early retirement) schem
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Figure 4: Dependency and ageing ind
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Figure 8: Percentage of working age
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Figure 11: Average age of workers l
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Figure 2: percentage change between
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Figure 4: Figure 5: 25 20 15 10 0 -
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100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 Figu
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However, this measure does not cove
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Table 1(a): Employment rate, men, 5
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Figure 3(b): Main Source of income
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4. Policies to stimulate active age
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Appendix Table A1(a): Participation
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Venta • Salg • Verkauf • Pvl
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