According to recent data published by the Federal Employment Agency, Germany’s wave of increased activity amongst the older worker cohorts and considered as one the country’s previous governments’ major successes in terms of its employment policy has come to an abrupt halt. The culprit? It would appear that the reason is a new law implemented in July 2014 that allows employees having contributed for 45 years to the pension system to retire on full pension at the age of 63. Ardent opposition from German employers had warned that this law could worsen an already tight high-skilled labor market and would undo their recent efforts to retain older workers for as long as possible. Now the data would appear to confirm their criticisms.
Drop in the number of workers in the 63-65 year cohort. Until very recently Germany was the ‘model student’ in Europe in terms of its employment of older staff. Thanks to the closing down of several different provisions that facilitated ceasing employment from age 55 (c.f. article No. 120143) between 2002 and 2008 the country had succeeded in raising the effective retirement age from 62 to 63. Since 2008, the number of workers aged between 60 and 65 has doubled. However this positive trend has
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