Glad to be grey
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: July 25, 2013
Jul 20th 2013 |From the print edition
Older workers have fared unusually well since the financial crisis.
THE recession of 2008-09 was remarkable in rich countries for its intensity, the subsequent recovery for its weakness. The labour market has also broken the rules, as new research from the OECD, a think-tank of mainly rich countries, shows in its annual Employment Outlook.
Young people always suffer in recessions. Employers stop hiring them; and they often get rid of new recruits because they are easier to sack. But in previous episodes, such as the recessions of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, older workers were also booted out. This time is different. During the financial crisis in 2008, and since, they have done better than other age groups.
The researchers focus on movements in "non-employment" as a share of the total population in three age groups between the final quarters of 2007 and 2012. This measure has the advantage of including not just unemployment, where people are looking for work, but also inactivity, where people are not seeking jobs. Whereas the average non-employment rate in the OECD has risen by four percentage points among young people and by one-and-a-half points among 25- to 54-year-olds, it has fallen by two points among the 55-64 age group.
Why have older employees done so well? In some southern European countries they benefit from job protection not afforded to younger workers, but that did not really help them in past recessions. What has changed, says Stefano Scarpetta, head of the OECD's employment directorate, is that firms now bear the full costs of getting rid of older staff. In the past early-retirement schemes provided by governments (in the mistaken belief that these would help young people) made it cheaper to push grey-haired workers out of the door. These have largely stopped.
Job losses among older workers have also been more than offset by falls in inactivity, reflecting forces that were already apparent before the crisis. Older workers are healthier than they used to be and work is less physically demanding. They are also more attractive to employers than prior generations. Today's 55- to 64-year-olds are the advance squad of the post-war baby-boomers who benefited from better education than their predecessors.
Older workers now have a sharper incentive to stay in employment because of the impact of the crisis on wealth. In Britain, for example, workers who rely on private pensions have been adversely affected by lower returns on their investments and by poor annuity rates when they convert their savings into regular income.
Many will argue that older workers have done better at the expense of the young. That view is wrongheaded. First, it is a fallacy that a job gained for one person is a job lost for another; there is no fixed "lump of labour". And second, as the report shows, young and old people are by and large not substitutes in the workplace. They do different types of work in different types of occupation: younger people gravitate to IT firms, for example, whereas older folk tend to be employed in more traditional industries. There are plenty of things that should be done to help the young jobless, but shunting older workers out of the workplace is not one of them.
老人不退 導致年輕人失業？
2013-07-25 Web only 作者：經濟學人
2008～2009年，富有國家的景氣大幅衰退，隨後的復甦同樣出乎意料地疲弱。根據OECD的最新研究則顯示，勞動市場的既有規則已被打破。景氣衰退，通常受苦的會是年輕人，因為雇主停止雇用年輕人，新招募的員工也很容易成為被裁員的目標。不過，過去幾次的景氣衰退，年長員工也同樣身受其害。但這次情況不一樣了，2008年金融危機至今，他們的情況比其他年齡群組都要好。
研究者統計了2007～2012年間，不同年齡族群的「非就業人口」佔總人口的百分比。這種統計方式不僅可以將失業者包含在內，同時也考慮到了不再尋找工作的人。結果顯示，OECD國家的年輕人非就業率上升了4個百分點，25～54歲人口則上升了1.5個百分點，但55～64歲群組的非就業率則是下降了2個百分點。
為何年長員工的表現比較好？專家指出，部分原因在於，過去政府提出的優退計劃多已終止，企業若裁減年老員工，必須自行承擔全數成本。此外，年長者停止尋找工作的人數減少，也抵消了失業的數字，而且早在金融危機發生之前就已經出現這樣的趨勢，原因除了老員工的健康勝於以往之外，現今的工作多數不需要太多勞力也有關係。
此外，老員工對雇主的吸引力優於上一世代；今日的55～64歲屬戰後嬰兒潮世代，教育程度優於更上一代。由於金融危機引發的財富衝擊，老員工更有繼續工作的誘因；以英國為例，投資報酬低，嚴重衝擊了倚賴私人退休金的員工。
許多人會說，當老員工的就業情況良好，代價就是犧牲了年輕人。這個看法其實是錯的；其一，某人得到工作，並不代表另一個人就要失去工作，工作數量並非是固定的「勞動總額」。其二，年輕人和年長者原則上無法相互替代，他們在不同的產業作著不同的工作。年輕失業者需要許多協助，但不包括趕走老員工。（黃維德譯）
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