Older Employees - Staying Longer in Companies with Mixed-Age Teams

Appropriately equipped workplaces, reduced working hours and performance requirements, mixed-age work teams, general training, specific training as well as part-time work for older employees: these are some of the measures more and more companies rely on in order to retain older employees. The companies’ efforts are increasing against the background of demographic ageing and the foreseeable shortage of skilled labour. A study conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim is now putting these measures to the test for the first time. One of the study’s results is that mixed-age work teams are the only measure leading to a longer employment period. Part-time work, on the contrary, is apparently even reducing the employment period of older staff, and all the other measures listed above have no influence at all on older employees' decisions to stay with their company.

For its analysis, ZEW uses longitudinal data provided by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) on older employees aged between 40 and 65 from 2002. In this context, 1,063 West German companies with at least five older employees are being observed. East German companies are not taken into account since there is no data available for the period before 1990.

Altogether some 50 per cent of the companies surveyed by ZEW offer at least one measure for older employees (multiple answers possible). Part-time work for older employees is the most frequent option: 36 per cent of the companies surveyed offer their older employees contract extensions on reduced working hours. Mixed-age work teams (18 per cent), where older employees can contribute their experience and younger employees their recent professional knowledge, as well as general training (17 per cent) are further, if somewhat less wide-spread measures, compared to part-time work. Reduced performance requirements, appropriately equipped workplaces (considering e.g. reduced vision or hearing impairment), as well as tailor-made training for older employees are noticeably less popular with only five, four, and three per cent of companies employing one of these measures.

The ZEW study suggests intensifying the search for appropriate measures to allow a more beneficial use of older employees’ potential. Given the background of demographic change, this search is more urgent than ever.

For further information please contact

Jan Fries, Phone +49 621/1235-376, E-mail fries@zew.de