Working until your sixty-seventh birthday is nonsensical

The number of people who are over forty and cannot get a job once they have been fired, has risen alarmingly. The measure to raise the pensionable age is therefore nonsensical and ill-considered.

Logical

With life-expectancy rising for men and women, it is in itself not a strange idea to raise the pensionable age from sixty-five to sixty-seven years. I think many people can understand that.

Health

A rising life-expectancy does not automatically imply that the aging human remains healthy, however. In itself health is a factor on which a person has little influence. Yet, a hardly acknowledged fact is that health problems of the elderly often begin in youth. In a manner of speaking, every unhealthy conduct ends up in some sort of big calculation and you are presented with the outcome as you grow older. Unfortunately, you will only find out if you get older.

Selection procedure

Therefore, it’s not strange that if jobs are available these will be given to people under forty. Once you are past forty and you lose your employment for whatever reason, it is bloody difficult to find another job.

Many men and women with exceptional backgrounds, work experience, optimism, commitment and a proactive work attitude are simply not invited for a vacancy because they are supposedly too old. As if they are completely worn out.

Policy

During an employers’ meeting in a sheltered workshop in Oosterhout (North Brabant, The Netherlands) in 2009, the chairman of an employers’ organisation, whom I'm quoting here verbatim, said “that people over forty-five are no longer of interest for the labour market.” Those present laughed heartily and subsequently one of these persons yelled that “forty is already too old.” Again, a round of hearty laughter. You can guess that none of those present had reached the age of forty, except for the writer.

A drama in several acts

Employers, Employee Insurance Agency and Statistics Netherlands are definitely acquainted with these facts, but a play, or a drama of many acts, about this is performed. You can take this figuratively as well as literally. As soon as one passes forty, the management begins to ‘push out’ the employee more and more because otherwise they have to leave - not that the management can evade this measure, for that matter.

Saving is no saving

Raising the pensionable age can perhaps mean a saving for pension reserves in the long term, but a rise in the number of unemployment benefits and social security payments must be set against this. Let the Statistics Netherlands compute that!

Sources: www.todio.nl