Company Initiatives for an Ageing Workforce in Italy
12. Conclusion
In the light of empirical evidence and the considerations reported above, the likelihood that Italian companies will soon be applying age-management principles on a large scale appears somewhat remote. While our research revealed a certain awareness that the number of older workers is destined to rise, it also ascertained a general lack of concrete planning to deal with this future scenario. This reflects the prevailing tendency in Italy not to encourage workers to prolong their careers.
In this respect, it is significant that the largest national trade unions (CGIL, CISL and UIL), the principal national confederation of employers (Confindustria) and the Ministry of Employment have so far failed to take any meaningful steps towards tackling this issue. Indeed, the unions seem to focus their attention on such questions as wage bargaining, company closures and working hours, while neglecting to take specific action to improve the working conditions of older employees. Similarly, the pensioners’ unions (SPI-CGIL, FNP-CISL and UILP), whose collective membership extends to some 60% of the entire elderly population, have so far confined their efforts (with few exceptions)11 to ‘active-ageing’ issues outside the labour market. In short, no consensus has been reached between labour unions and pensioners’ unions with regard to the question of older workers.
For its part, Confindustria has not only failed to undertake any specific action at the national level, but has actually maintained a somewhat negative and short-sighted attitude towards the issue. Indeed, it has stated that greater use of older workers would create unsustainable “critical situations”, in that such employees are deemed to be less able to adapt to technological and organisational change, less productive and, due to the current model of career progression, more costly than their younger counterparts (OECD, 2004: 83; Senato della Repubblica, 2005: 27). A possible approach to this issue might be to revise the system of remuneration in such a way as to link pay scales not only to length of service but also to productivity and performance (European Commission, 2004a: 14), as is the case in Germany and Switzerland, for instance (OECD, 2004: 12).
Here again, however, public intervention at the national level has generally been very limited. Ministerial measures to support employment make no mention of the age of potential beneficiaries. Moreover, such support has been restricted to providing the conceptual framework for projects (mainly for hiring or rehiring), while leaving their development and realisation (including the possibility of listing unemployed or older workers among the possible beneficiaries) to the individual regional authorities12.
The sector that has so far proved most committed to the issue of older workers is that of research. The approach, however, has been fairly academic, mostly through participation in European projects. These studies have revealed that Italy is lagging behind many (particularly northern) EU countries, especially because of a lack of cohesion among the various parties involved: political institutions, trade unions, employers’ associations, research institutes, companies and workers. In order to promote the principles, practices and policies required to support Italy’s ageing workforce, there is an urgent need to improve the ability of all these parties to plan together the most effective intervention strategies through which to achieve the objectives set out in Lisbon and Stockholm (Reday-Mulvey, 2005).
Finally, it should be underlined that the methodology adopted in the present research presents both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, the qualitative examination of a limited number of cases allowed the issue to be analysed in depth, its most subtle nuances being grasped through the detailed recording of the opinions of the various parties involved. On the other hand, it imposed certain limitations on the assessment of the results obtained. Firstly, the small size of the sample means that the possibility of selection bias cannot be ruled out. Future studies should therefore be recommended to aim to gather quantitative data on larger — and to some extent statistically representative — samples of companies. Secondly, the cross-sectional and ex post approach to the cases considered prevented detailed reconstruction of the evolution of company policies on the management of older workers, thereby obscuring the socio-economic dynamics underlying the initiatives adopted. Thirdly, restricting the investigation to long-term initiatives (i.e. those with at least a 5-year history — a criterion imposed by participation in the European project) excluded a number of more recent programmes, the analysis of which would have yielded a more complete empirical picture of current trends in Italy. Future studies should therefore aim to depict the evolution of age-management policies in Italy through the periodic monitoring of ad hoc projects.
11 The Spi-Cgil, for example, promoted a study (conducted by IRES) on the ageing of society which also dealt with the labour market issues of the over-45s and older workers (Mirabile and Carrera, 2000); the Uilp promoted a study on older workers and welfare policies (Geroldi, 2000).
12 The Progetto Quadri is an exception. Launched experimentally in 2003 in 5 regions, it aimed to facilitate the rehiring of employees of management status aged 40-52 years made redundant by large/medium-sized companies undergoing restructuring/rationalisation. The project recruited 382 candidates, 258 of whom were successfully re-employed (www.lavoro-over40.it/doc/Quadri.pdf).
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Tags: aged-based personnel management, ageing workforce, employers initiatives, italian companies employment