“Seniors don’t exist! There are no seniors in companies, but an age pyramid to monitor. It’s not age, but a series of factors that keep us working. » It is in these terms that Annie Jolivet, associate researcher at the Institute for Economic and Social Research (IRES) and at the Center for the Study of Employment and Work (CEET), introduced the HR Meetings of November 8 . This monthly meeting of HR news, created by The world in partnership with ManpowerGroup and Malakoff Humanis, brought together ten HRDs in Paris to discuss the place of seniors in the company, with a view to a possible new pension reform.
At the latest report from the Ministry of Labor, at the end of December 2021, 56% of 55-64 year olds were employed, and more specifically 75.1% of 55-59 year olds. The dropout occurs when approaching 62 years, the legal retirement age: the employment rate drops to 35.5% for 60-64 year olds and drops to 8.6% between 65 and 69 years old. . The difference in the employment rate of “seniors” in France and in other European countries where one retires later is always put forward in the debates around the reform of pensions by the partisans of a postponement of the retirement age. But for HRDs, the question of the employment of seniors arises in other terms: exposure to arduous work, transmission of skills, gradual departures.
To talk about it, “The employer reference is often 45 years old. The Ministry of Labor had indicated this age not to set a threshold, but to encourage companies to anticipate retirement and to put in place a whole series of measures. Today, you can work until age 67. But we cannot reasonably consider that the end of the career extends from 45 to 67 years! », notes Annie Jolivet. The Ministry of Labor has set the start of the second part of a career at 45 years old, the European Union considers that seniors are between 55 and 64 years old, and for health insurance, we are thus qualified from 60 years old. .
“We don’t all have the same representation, recognizes Olivier Ruthardt. For the deputy general manager in charge of human resources of Malakoff Humanis, their enhancement requires an inversion of our representations. One of the difficulties is that companies are guided by legal references, but seniors are above all skills, a source of know-how, adaptability. »
Researcher Annie Jolivet underlines the interest in looking into the recruitment of seniors, as is commonly practiced in other countries. Its purpose is to free the company from categorization by age. In France, the labor market has changed a lot: increase in shortage jobs, surge in fixed-term contracts to recruit… “There are sectors, such as school transport or real estate, where we have already gotten used to seeing recruits arrive late without this causing problems”, she says. Some have started recently, because they are faced with a shortage of candidates.
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