Lazy young people are replaced by retirees/ 16% of people over 65 work

2024-07-22 09:19:35, Aktualitet CNA

Lazy young people are replaced by retirees/ 16% of people over 65 work

Illustrative photo

Year after year, the employment of retirees is increasing as a need to cover the gap left empty in the labor market by young people.

In 2023, over 16% of people over 65 were employed according to data from the INSTAT Labor Force Survey.

As can be seen from the attached graph, the employment rate of people of retirement age has been increasing over the last decade, from 8.6% in 2015 to 16.3% in 2023.

The employment of older people is coming at a time when youth unemployment has increased in the same period. The unemployment rate for the 15-24 age group in 2023 is very high at 25.6%.

In 2023, young people in the age group of 15-29 years, who are not employed, are not attending school or any professional training, make up 24.6% of all young people.

Labor market experts claim that older people of retirement age cover the needs of businesses that are not usually preferred by young people such as security guards of private facilities and professions that do not require much skill and energy are being covered by older people.

On the other hand, low payments towards old-age pensions are encouraging more and more elderly people to work to make ends meet.

Source: INSTAT

More detailed data shows that seniors with high school education had the highest percentage of employment growth, followed by those with 8 years of education and finally those with higher education.

But pensioners with higher education had the biggest annual increase in employment with 6.2 percentage points within the year.

Due to shortages in some professions, many employees employed in the health and education sectors work even after retirement.

The lack of employees has already affected the state sector and service functions. In some regions of the country, such as in the South and the North, many schools have shortages of profile teachers in the main subjects, while retired doctors who previously worked in Tirana work in hospitals.

Nearly 82,000 people over 64 were at work in October-December 2023, up from 54,500 in the same period of 2022.

There is a tendency in recent years that when the employment of young people falls, there are more employed among retirees./ Monitor.al