engleski

Slovenian employers and the challenge of the longer working life

The goals of this paper are (1) to analyze the attitudes of the Slovenian employers towards older workers within the context of the ageing process and the reforms in the labour market, and (2) to propose policies and initiatives which will both encourage employers to retain older workers and help older workers to stay active. In order to asses the Slovenian employer perspective on older workers’ employment we use empirical data from a sample survey of 200 Slovenian enterprises. The questionnaire design is comparable to similar international surveys. The data are analysed using a number of bivariate and multivariate analytical techniques. When analyzing perceptions of employee characteristics by Slovenian employers it can be shown that older workers are perceived to perform better than their younger counterparts (in comparison to the company average) when it comes to professionalism, decision making competence, willingness to work hard, reliability, honesty and integrity, attentiveness as well as loyalty. The largest disadvantages of older versus younger workers stem from poorer employer evaluation of their adaptability to new technologies, ability to acquire new skills and knowledge, adaptability to change as well as readiness to learn. When comparing present employment of older employees and active search for new employees aged 50 to 64, our study shows that Slovenian companies behave in pretty much the same manner regardless of the sector of activity, firm size, respondent age and respondent education: the majority employs a very low percentage of older employees and hardly actively targets new employees aged 50 to 64. The results of the survey thus to some extent provide an economic rationale for the potential old age discrimination when it comes to the employee selection process. Also, these results show that it is extremely important to stimulate life-long learning (the major weaknesses of older workers as perceived by the employers are related to their knowledge and skills), along with the increased flexibility in hiring and firing, while the wage bill should not include all administratively set age bonuses that further decrease the probability to employ older workers.

active ageing ; employer attitudes ; labour market ; older work- ers ; population ageing ; survey

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