Spain | Extending working life: making a virtue of necessity

Summary

The increasing longevity of the Spanish population, together with the progressive delay in entering the labor market, poses a challenge for the welfare state, but also an opportunity for society.

Key points

• Key points:
• The number of people of working age for every person aged 65 and over will continue to fall until it stabilizes at around 1.7 in the mid-2040s, according to the OECD. Extending working life on a voluntary basis is one of the possible ways to safeguard the sustainability of the welfare state.
• BBVA Research recommends action in three interrelated areas to encourage older workers to remain in the labor market. First, it is necessary to foster compatibility between retirement and paid work.
• Second, it is essential to boost the recruitment and retention of older employees by addressing three talent management challenges: ageism in hiring and evaluation processes, labor repercussions of health problems, and rigidity of employment contracts and pay.
• We also suggest adopting measures to increase the employability of older people. For this, it is necessary to identify training needs, which will allow for designing specific career guidance services to inform older workers of the benefits of lifelong learning, advising them on acquiring skills that will enable them to enter new occupations.

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