LONDON — A British minister has advised people aged over 60 to go to university and update their skills if they want to continue working.
With youth unemployment on the rise across Europe, it might seem an odd time to be encouraging older people to keep working rather than take a well-earned break and free up jobs for a younger generation.
But with pension funds in deficit and the number of over-60s on the rise, governments and individuals are under pressure to accept that a graying work force will have to work longer.
“There is nothing stopping older people applying for university,” David Willetts, Britain’s higher education minister, said this week. “If they can benefit from it, they should have that opportunity.”
The rules have been eased to allow people of any age to take out student loans to help finance their university education.
“If people need it in order to keep up to date with changes in their jobs, that is an opportunity they are going to take,” the Daily Telegraph quoted the minister as saying.
The advice comes at a time, however, when growing numbers of young Europeans are emigrating in order to find jobs that are unavailable at home.
“From Ireland to Greece, young Europeans are now the ones desperately seeking exit strategies from economies in free fall,” according to The Guardian.
László Andor, the European Union’s employment commissioner, recently quoted jobless figures indicating that 1 in 4 young people under 25 were out of work, a total of 5.7 million, in the 27 member states.
In a special report on Thursday the EurActiv Web site said the Continent faced a digital brain drain as a consequence of a generation of educated young people leaving Europe to seek work elsewhere.
It said the situation was particularly bad in southern states where unemployment was highest. In countries such as Spain, the mass exodus of young, educated people amounted to a brain drain “the likes of which has not been seen since the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939.”
For those who stay at home — whether they are 25 or 65 — there is clearly no guarantee that university degrees will get them jobs.
When a British coffee chain recently advertised for staff at one of its new stores, it received 1,701 applications for just eight jobs. Among the rejected candidates were a number of jobless new graduates.
Should older people be encouraged to keep working? Or should they step aside to widen the job market for jobless newcomers? Tell us what you think.
IHT Rendezvous: Europe's Jobless Youth: Should the Old Make Way?
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IHT Rendezvous: Europe's Jobless Youth: Should the Old Make Way?
