The ageing workforce and employability

One of the most concerning contemporary developments in the European Area is population and workforce ageing, even the negative dynamics of working age population for the 2010-2030 time-horizon. Ageing triggers not only major challenges for economy and society, but also opportunities when the human capital represented by older workers together with other target-groups such as low-skilled adult population, early school leavers and migrants is valorised efficiently. The complex requirements and the rapid development on the labour market impose as sine qua non condition for valorising the human potential of elderly their responsible involvement in continuing vocational education and training, for maintaining and developing work ability. The concept of work ability is developed within the specialised literature from the perspective of its determinants and triggered effects. Its major determinants are: physical and mental health, the social relationships skills, educational level and competences’ enhancement; values, attitudes, motivation and the working environment, and leadership. Satisfying this work ability conditioning has the following certain effects: employability, productivity and quality of work, productive ageing, quality of life and well-being. Unfortunately, the investment in learning later in life presupposes also the existence of some barriers: on the side of the elderly employees we mention the closeness to the pensioning age and the inadequate support of the employer in terms of allotted time and training costs; on the side of the employer very often the perception that elderly have lower training openness prevails. Consequently, employers would have to be the main providers of the training, even though they are aware of the negative impact of ageing that does not always provide for an adequate training infrastructure within the company, which constitutes the content of the so-called “ageing paradox”.