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CHAPTER 2
Do European employers support longer working lives? 37

best choice. Except for the UK, little has been or will be done to encourage
workers to continue working until the age of 65. The same can be said for
recruiting more older workers and calling back former retired employees.
In the UK female workers, older workers and workers from ethnic minorities
are equally popular among employers. Only (partially) disabled workers fall
behind as a potential solution for labour-market shortages. The picture in the
Netherlands is quite different. Here (partially) disabled workers are regarded
as the most attractive group to supply additional labour. Women and immigrant
workers share second place, while older workers stay far behind. Employers
either seem to think disabled workers are less problematic for the organisation
than older workers, or financial incentives to hire disabled workers are thought
to be attractive – the survey does not provide an answer to why employers
prefer disabled workers to older workers. Greece and Spain show a similar
pattern: women are still considered to be the main source of additional labour
supply; (partially) disabled and immigrant workers share second place. Here
too, older workers are at the end of the queue.

Table 2.6. Measures taken or considered by organisations in response
to personnel shortages (%)

Solving the problem by EL ES HU NL UK
Encouraging workers to continue working
until the age of 65 10 14 16 12 60
Recruiting more older workers 8 7 31 8 42
Calling back former retired employees 4 3 24 3 23
Improving employability of workers 35 47 44 42 81
Introducing labour saving technologies 36 14 27 18 69
Recruiting more female workers 28 38 18 21 45

Recruiting more ethnic minorities 13 11 18 21 42
Reintegrating disabled workers 12 12 13 26 21

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

Improving employability of workers is the most popular measure to combat
personnel shortages. Generally, this does not go together with training
programmes for older workers. Usually, participation in ʻgeneralʼ training
programmes decreases with age and workers over 50 hardly participate in