NORWAY: Seniors More Popular As Employees Than Five Years Ago

OSLO (Aftenposten), October 17, 2007: Older workers are clearly more attractive employees than they were just five years ago. A survey carried out by Synovate for the Center for Senior Policy shows that 44 percent of those polled believe that employees in their 50s are more sought after than they were in 2002. "This is very good news. The companies that now do not manage to recruit or hold onto their older staff will be the losers in the tough competition for manpower," said Åsmund Lunde, director of the Center for Senior Policy. Business leaders - 68 percent of them - shared this feeling that older staff were in greater demand, and 83 percent of executives felt it was an advantage for their firms to have people working there until retirement age. Fully 93 percent of business leaders felt the over-50s performed at least as well as their younger colleagues. "This shows that there has been an attitude shift in the past five years," Lunde said. Despite these findings, half of Norwegian companies lack a plan to keep their older employees on the job. Only 38 percent of private business leaders have such a strategy, while the corresponding figure in the public sector is 75 percent. Copyright. Aftenposten Multimedia A/S, Oslo, Norway