W.S. Conen

Employers’ attitudes and actions towards the extension of working lives in Europe

Purpose - Although policymakers have put great efforts into the promotion of older workers’ labour force participation, quantitative empirical knowledge about employers’ views towards extension of working lives is limited. The purpose of this paper is to improve the understanding of employers’ attitudes and actions towards extension of working lives, by examining recruitment and retention behaviour towards older workers, employers’ views on the consequences of an ageing workforce, organisational policies, and what governments can do to extend working lives. Design/methodology/approach - The authors analyse surveys administered to employers in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK in 2009. Findings - It is found that a minority of employers have applied measures to recruit or retain older workers, and employers rather retain than hire older workers. A considerable share of employers, albeit to different degrees per country, associate the ageing of their staff with a growing gap between labour costs and productivity. Employers expecting a larger gap do not apply more organisational measures to either increase productivity or adjust the cost-productivity balance. Employers may think the cost-productivity issue is partly for governments to solve; employers expecting a larger cost-productivity gap consider wage subsidies to be an effective measure to extend working lives. Originality/value - The paper addresses the employers’ perspective, one that is often neglected compared to attitudes and behaviour of older workers themselves and research on institutional arrangements. This paper is also among the first to report on employers’ policies and practices from a cross-national perspective.

Ageing and Employers' Perceptions of Labour Costs and Productivity: A Survey Among European Employers

Purpose: This paper examines employers’ perceptions of changes of the labour cost-productivity gap due to the ageing of the workforce, the effects of tenure wages and employment protect ion on the perceived gap and whether a perceived labour cost-productivity gap affects employers’ recruitment and retention behaviour towards older workers. Methodology: We analyze surveys administered to employers in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Findings: Approximately half of the employers associate the ageing of the personnel staff with a growing gap between labour costs and productivity. Both the presence of tenure wages and employment protection rules increase the probability that employers perceive a widening labour cost–productivity gap due to the ageing of their workforce. A counterfactual shows that even when employment protection and tenure wage systems are abolished 40 percent of the employers expect a net cost increase. The expected labour cost-productivity gap negatively affects both recruitment and retention of older workers. Originality: The wage-productivity gap is examined by the perceptions of employers using an international comparative survey.

Ageing and employers’ perceptions of labour costs and productivity

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine employers’ perceptions of changes in the labour cost-productivity gap due to the ageing of the workforce, the effects of tenure wages and employment protection on the perceived gap, and whether a perceived labour cost-productivity gap affects employers’ recruitment and retention behaviour towards older workers. Design/methodology/approach - The authors analyse surveys administered to employers in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Findings - Approximately half of employers associate the ageing of the personnel with a growing gap between labour costs and productivity. Both the presence of tenure wages and employment protection rules increase the probability of employers perceiving a widening labour cost-productivity gap due to the ageing of their workforce. A counterfactual shows that even when employment protection and tenure wage systems are abolished, 40 percent of employers expect a net cost increase. The expected labour cost-productivity gap negatively affects both recruitment and retention of older workers. Originality/value - In this paper, the wage-productivity gap is examined through the perceptions of employers using an international comparative survey.

Ageing Organisations and the Extension of Working Lives: A Case Study Approach

This paper examines how the economic climate and policy changes at national level have been affecting organisational practices, aimed at the extension of working lives of older workers, over the last decade. We analyse case studies conducted among Dutch organisations. Our findings show that personnel policies are typically short-term oriented and vary in their existence and content congruous to the economic climate. Policy changes in retirement arrangements, and the debate about raising the official retirement age, have made both employees and employers realise that the extension of working lives has become an unavoidable fact, although both parties still seem intrinsically opposed to it. Changes to safety regulations and the increase in costs for employers if employees drop out of work due to ill health have led to an increasing focus on health-related measures in professions with intense physical work over the last decade. We conclude that, while national level policy changes in areas like health and safety do percolate down and begin to affect organisational practice, it is at the organisational level that they still need to be worked through.

Are ‘Voluntary’ Self-Employed Better Prepared for Retirement than ‘Forced’ Self-Employed? : The Case of the Netherlands and Germany

When it comes to financial preparation for retirement, self-employed workers in many European countries face unique challenges not encountered by traditional wage earners. This is particularly true for self-employed workers who do not supervise subordinate personnel. This is the case because many self-employed individuals in nations such as the Netherlands and Germany do not have large-scale access to employer-sponsored pensions, which are a mainstay of pension support for most workers in those two countries. In this investigation, we explored the saving practices and perceived future pension adequacy of self-employed workers aged 15-65 in Germany (N = 702) and the Netherlands (N = 655). Of particular interest was whether respondents felt that they voluntarily chose to become self-employed, or whether they felt “forced” to enter self-employment due to economic or labor market pressures. Findings revealed that some 25 percent of workers were driven into self-employment out of necessity. Moreover, forced self-employed individuals were found to be less likely to save for retirement than their voluntary self-employed counterparts, and they envisioned a less optimistic future pension scenario for themselves. Additional analyses focused on the demographic and psychological dimensions that underlie saving practices and perceptions of pension adequacy. Discussion focuses on the need to change institutional practices and public policies that place self-employed individuals at a disadvantage — particularly those who are driven into self-employment based on economic pressures and a lack of opportunities in the traditional labor market.

Arbeidskosten en productiviteit van oudere werknemers : De visie van Nederlandse werkgevers in Europees perspectief

Percepties van arbeidskosten en productiviteit spelen een belangrijke rol voor de wijze waarop werkgevers met werknemers omgaan. In dit artikel wordt onderzocht welke consequenties een vergrijzend werknemersbestand volgens werkgevers zal hebben op arbeidskosten en productiviteit, en welke maatregelen werkgevers toepassen en overwegen om de arbeidskosten te verlagen, dan wel de arbeidsproductiviteit te verhogen. Analyses worden gedaan op basis van een survey, gehouden onder 5.822 werkgevers in Denemarken, Duitsland, Frankrijk, Italie, Nederland, Polen, het Verenigd Koninkrijk en Zweden. Uit de resultaten blijkt dat een aanzienlijk deel van de werkgevers een ouder wordend personeelsbestand associeert met een groter wordend gat tussen arbeidskosten en productiviteit; dit is vooral een issue in Nederland. Werkgevers die een groter gat tussen kosten en productiviteit verwachten, blijken niet vaker maatregelen te nemen om dit gat ‘te dichten’ – zoals opleiding voor oudere werknemers en demotie – maar blijken wel vaker vervroegd pensioen of accommoderende maatregelen toe te passen. Wel overwegen werkgevers die een groter gat verwachten vaker maatregelen als demotie. We concluderen dat Europese werkgevers vooralsnog weinig maatregelen lijken te nemen om een van de grootste verwachte negatieve consequenties van een vergrijzend personeelsbestand –een groter wordend gat tussen arbeidskosten en productiviteit – het hoofd te bieden.

Beroepsdeelname van ouderen - Een vergelijking tussen Europese landen

Even though labour market participation of older women and men has been increasing all over Europe during the last few decades there are still major differences by country and by gender. This article discusses the relation between these differences in labour market participation and institutional arrangements in the field of the activation of senior people and pension reforms in various European welfare states. One major observation is that higher educational levels go together with higher participation rates, longer participation and higher actual retirement ages of both women and men. This holds no matter what type of welfare state is involved. However, social-democratic welfare states are more successful than others in combating gender differences in participation. Moreover, they succeed better than others in retaining older workers – men and women – for the labour market. This success is not based on one single measure, but on a complex of measures and attitudes among workers and employers that do not exclude older women and men, but stimulate them to invest in their human capital and helps them to reconcile work and private life throughout the life course.

Are Employers Changing Their Behavior Toward Older Workers

This paper addresses possible changes in Dutch employers’ behavior regarding the recruitment and retention of older workers during the last decade. We analyze surveys administered to Dutch employers in 2000, 2002, 2005, 2008 and 2009. The results show that efforts to recruit older workers are changing congruous with the economic climate, whilst retention behavior shows a clear and rather gradual time effect. We conclude that the position of older workers has improved between 2000 and 2008 and has done so in comparison with other underrepresented groups in the labor market. During the recession, recruitment of older workers declined substantially, while efforts to retain older workers are in both absolute and relative terms higher than in 2000. With respect to organizational policies, we conclude that throughout the period under observation these policies are dominated by measures that “spare” older workers.