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Working and ageing
152 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

Denmark achieved high rates of employment and low unemployment with
a quarter of workers changing employers annually. ʻFlexicurityʼ brings together
flexibility and security as supportive rather than contradictory to the concept.
In considering the needs of organisations, employers will relate policies and
practice understandably to financial viability. Small and medium-sized
businesses in particular may not readily implement policies and regulations
to support older workers, for example access to training and promotion. Initial
recruitment may exclude them as well. However, employers find that stable
employment relations and retention of loyal and well-qualified employees can
be positive, and employees can be interested in more flexible ways of
organising work, such as balancing work and family (Bredgaard et al., 2005,
p. 19). It is an alternative to the ʻ(male) full-time, lifelong employment security
with the same employer, but is instead a “floating equilibrium” of a 30-hour
working week over a lifetime, for both men and women.ʼ (Bredgaard et al.,
2005, p. 23).
Such flexibility and high mobility raise challenges for education and training.
Training providers requiring a cohort, a critical mass of learners for financially
viable delivery to, for example, a class may find that part-time work schedules,
job-sharing, support or lack thereof from management, workers moving
between jobs presenting difficulties.
Within this innovative approach to the labour market in Denmark, there is
no special attention to older workers. With this approach encouraging frequent
job changes, groups of workers can become isolated. In this scenario, people
retire later than the EU average, at 61.8 years, and older workers have an
employment rate of 58% and higher participation rate. Older workers,
however, can find it more difficult to get a new job if unemployed, and tend to
have less adult vocational training (Bredgaard et al., 2005, p. 26).

8.4. Training

Being older can mean less access to vocational education and training. Older
workers receive less adult vocational training than younger workers
(Bredgaard et al., 2005, p. 26). According to Cedefop (2010) trends in Europe
indicate that older workers (55-64) miss out on training for reasons such as
conflicts with work schedule, family responsibilities, or training being too costly
for them to afford. Employers are able easily to hire and fire workers and not
provide training, so more vulnerable groups of employees such as older
workers need public-sector support (Bredgaard et al., 2005, p. 26). The Danish