Due to the enormous demand for personnel on the labor market, everything is being done to get the work done anyway: part-timers who start working more hours, the deployment of labor migrants and people with a distance to the labor market. who are sitting or have already retired, to continue working or to return to work.
“Continuing to do something in the labor market at a higher age is certainly part of the solution to the shortage,” he says. “The great thing about the Netherlands is that we have a good pension system, which means there is less need to work at a higher age. But you do have to encourage people to do this voluntarily. Employers should play a more active role in this,” says Henkens.
In some countries, older people are already working much more often, such as in Iceland and Japan. Icelanders are the workhorses of Europe and will continue beyond their retirement age of 67. Japan struggles with an aging and shrinking workforce. At the current rate, one worker will eventually have to finance the pensions of three elderly people. That is unsustainable, so the elderly must continue to work. The policy is aimed at employing people above the official pension limit of 65 years.
If people in the Netherlands have reached their retirement age and still want to continue working, should that be possible? What do you think?