Transcript Employment Initiatives for an Ageing Workforce in the New

Employment Initiatives for an Ageing
Workforce in the New Member States
Irene Mandl
Tallinn, October 9, 2008
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Agenda
• About the project
– Aims and objectives of the project
– Methodology applied
• Main results
– Public actors and initiatives
– Perspective of enterprises
• Conclusions
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About the project
Study on “Age and employment in the new Member
States”
on behalf of
• Co-ordination by the Austrian Institute for SME
Research
• Research by national partner institutes
• Timeframe: July 2005 – February 2006
• Report available at
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/htmlfiles/ef0626.htm
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Aims and Objectives
• Providing an overview on the situation of older
workers in the NMS incl. Romania and Bulgaria
• Gaining insight into the perspectives of
governments and social partners
• Documenting public measures/policies
• Presenting “case studies“ at organisation level
• Elaboration of lessons learned and general
conclusions
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Methodology
• Background analysis
– Conducted in the NMS of 2004 and 2007
– Quantitative and preliminary qualitative analysis
• In-depth analysis at national level
– BG, EE, LV, PL, RO, SI, SK
– Attitudes, perspectives, roles of social partners and governments
as well as public policies/initiatives
• Case-studies at national level
– BG, EE, LV, PL, RO, SI, SK
– 4 per country (company, public organisations)
• Elaboration of conclusions
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Overview on the main results
General public attitude towards the older
workforce
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Ageing workforce no priority issue
In public discussion since the early 1990s
Drafting of policies related to European recommendations
Comparatively few examples directly addressing older
workers
• Operational implementation only recently due to
– Life expectancy
– Tradition of early retirement
– Less developed social dialogue (exemption: Tripartite
system)
– Difficult raising of financial funds
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Public initiatives
• Reforming pension and social security systems
• Anti-discriminatory labour legislation
• Provision of information and matching (for
employers, employees, labour market actors)
• Health care (occupational health)
• Training/skill development (for unemployed, IT
focus, LLL)
• Working arrangements (flexible work contracts)
• Financial incentives (e.g. tax reliefs or wage
subsidies)
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Perspectives of private actors
• Lack of willingness to employ older people (labour supply
exceeds demand)
• International companies brought the culture of young
employees, apply CSR
• SMEs are slowly implementing CSR
• Specific measures rather applied in large or formerly
state-owned companies
• Mostly single ad-hoc measures; comprehensive age
management approaches are rare
• Main rationale: specific labour shortages; specific skills
and knowledge
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Company case studies (I)
• Pinpointing and awarding older workers‘ performance
– Financial rewards for loyalty (e.g. LV)
– Nonfinancial rewards for loyalty (e.g. MT)
– Mentoring/coaching (e.g. EE, LV, PL)
• Active employment and recruitment of older persons
– Lacking alternatives (e.g. EE, RO)
• Training and skill development
– life course approach (e.g. SK, RO)
– IT focus (e.g. BG, SK)
• Redeployment
– New fields of activity according to capabilities (e.g. EE, RO, SI)
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Company case studies (II)
• Flexible working practices
– Working hours (e.g. EE, BG)
• Health and well being
– Preventive medical observations (e.g. LV, CZ)
– Provision of well-being facilities (e.g. SI)
– Ergonomics (e.g. RO, SI)
• Exit policy
– Entrepreneurship programmes (e.g. SK, BG)
– Extending relationship to the company (e.g. EE, PL)
• Comprehensive approaches
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Conclusions
Conclusions (I)
• Barcelona and Stockholm targets hardly to be
reached by 2010
• Neither public nor private actors considerably
deal with the issue
• Problems for an effective integration of older
people in the labour market
– Hardly any specific initiatives available
– Hardly any co-ordination among actors/policies
– Operational implementation rather young
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Conclusions (II)
• Identified fields of action:
– Design and implement more specific measures, also at
company level
– Safeguard the commitment of public actors
(particularly the social partners) and the management
of the companies
– More efficient communication and co-ordination among
public actors
– Awareness raising measures targeted at employers
and employees
– Find sources for financing measures
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Thank you for your attention!
Website:
www.kmuforschung.ac.at
E-Mail:
[email protected]