Manpower, the international placement agency, has just published the results of a major study on recruiting and retainingsenior employees. 28 000 employers in 25 countries were polled in October 2006 to determine whether companies had set up specific strategies to recruit and keep on senior workers after the age of retirement. These issues are fundamental: over the next 10 years, a large proportion of the labour force will retire and these departures risk creating a severe shortage of talent.
This worldwide study showed that only 14% of employers say they have implemented a strategy to recruit senior employees and only 21% have measures to keep their employees on the job after the retirement age.
Some countries, however, have done a good job in targeting older candidates in their recruiting campaigns. This is the case for Singapore (48%), Hong Kong (24%) and Austria (21%) in particular. The countries that encourage employees to postpone their retirement the most are Japan (83%), Singapore (53%), South Africa (34%) and New Zealand (33%).
The worst students are for the most part in Europe. Employers doing the least to recruit senior people include Sweden (4%), France (6%), Norway (6%) and Spain (6%).
As for Canada, only 17% of employers said they had a strategy to recruit senior employees and 24% a strategy to keep on their employees. It is to be hoped, however, that this numbers will increase significantly over the coming years if economic growth continues!