[Unemployment of elderly employees]

Due to social security provisions and collective bargaining agreements, older employees are less frequently confronted with unemployment in comparison with other age groups in the labour force. In September 1984, 422,000 older workers aged 50 years and over were unemployed. To this figure an additional 250,000 older workers must be added, who are no longer registered as unemployed but nevertheless would be interested in finding another job. Only in exceptional cases do the older unemployed find permanent jobs with the help of labour exchange or by their own initiative. A proportion of roughly 80% of the older unemployed aged 50 plus is not re-integrated into the working process before retirement. Older unemployed workers suffer particularly from the financial and perhaps even to a greater extent from the psychological effects of unemployment. In a situation, in which renumerated employment is no longer available, they pass through a rather long period of re-orientation towards a meaningful life.