If you are over 50 and change or lose your job, you will have a hard time finding a new job. This is a prejudice that can be proved by numbers for a long time. But the tide seems to have turned. Older people are easier to find a job than younger people.
The unemployment rate for the 50-64 age group fell from 3 percent to 1.9 percent in the last two years. This is below the 2 percent rate for 25-49 year olds.
Shortage of skilled workers renders the old age guillotine ineffective
A study by relocation company von Rundstedt & Partner, which Blick reported at the end of September, comes to the same conclusion. “The survey did not detect any statistically significant differences in hierarchical level, types of functions, age, gender, and employment level,” he says. “In particular, contrary to public perception, it has been shown that people over 50 are generally not at a disadvantage, at least when it comes to layoffs.”
The era of the guillotine has changed. “In some industries, you were considered old in the job market at age 50,” Pascal Scheiwiller, 49, CEO of Rundstedt & Partner, told Blick. Thanks to the shortage of skilled workers, the threshold is now much higher, between 58 and 60 years old.”
However, older people remain at a disadvantage.
Avenir 50 Plus, which advocates for the integration of older workers into the labor market, complains that the low unemployment rate among 50- to 64-year-olds is misleading. Heidi Joos, 67, general manager of Avenir 50 Plus, told Blick that the value jumps to 3 percent for those over 60. “It doesn’t even include all those who are excluded and those who participate in an employment program.”
This is important, according to Joos, because people over the age of 50 are much more likely to be unemployed for a long time. It is above all higher pension fund contributions that are responsible for age discrimination. “You should start thinking about protection against layoffs for older employees,” he demands. In individual sectors, such arrangements already exist through collective bargaining agreements.