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CHAPTER 2
Do European employers support longer working lives? 31

labour market and is an ageing workforce regarded as one of these
challenges? Results of the fair play research show that employers perceive
shortages of labour as one of the main labour-market challenges for the
coming decades. In four of the five countries included in the survey labour
shortages are mentioned among the top three (Table 2.1), with a notable
exception for Hungary. However, data for Hungary are fairly recent and may
be affected by the global recession.
The main conclusion based on the figures presented in Table 2.1 is that in
all countries in our study there seems to be awareness that demographic
developments will affect the future labour force and quantitative labour-market
shortages are foreseen.

Table 2.1. Degree to which employers think the following
developments will affect recruiting problems on the labour
market in their own organisations (%)

Developments EL ES HU NL UK
Ageing population 49 67 39 77 38
Labour market shortages 62 64 43 62 72
International competition 62 49 38 71 22

Increasing work place stress 60 45 55 52 44
Unemployment 57 54 30 45 9
Declining birth rates 51 46 49 44 36
Inflow of foreign workers 53 34 13 43 11
Poverty 51 51 58 21 56

Source: Fair play employer survey, 2005; OFA fair play employer survey Hungary, 2008.

2.4.2. Ageing of the workforce: expectations and consequences
A sense of urgency among employers regarding demographic challenges on
the labour market makes it interesting to know more about employersʼ
expectations of the consequences of ageing staff.
Looking at consequences of an ageing workforce, a divide among
employers becomes visible (Table 2.2): Hungarian and British employers are
far more positive on the economic consequences of ageing employees,
whereas Greek, Spanish and Dutch employers predominantly see negative