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Recruitment and Selection of Older Workers

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Encyclopedia of Geropsychology

Synonyms

Baby boomers; Hiring; Labor demand; Mature aged workers; Workers aged over 50

Definition

Recruitment refers to seeking, selecting, and hiring people for employment.

Older workers are people aged over 50 years who participate in the labor market.

Introduction

In recent decades there has been a shift in labor market public policy from a culture of early retirement to one centered on hiring older workers, i.e., those aged over 50. The culture of early exit flourished in most major industrialized economies until the 1990s. Previously, older workers who left the workforce prematurely were regarded to be early retirees rather than unemployed. Their joblessness ended not with their reentering the workforce but transferring to pensions (Casey and Laczko 1989). Subsequently, there has been a policy shift towards prolonging working lives that has been generated by population aging in general as well as the aging of workforces in specific industry sectors, such as nursing and teaching.

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Correspondence to Catherine Earl , Philip Taylor or Christopher McLoughlin .

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Earl, C., Taylor, P., McLoughlin, C. (2017). Recruitment and Selection of Older Workers. In: Pachana, N.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geropsychology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-082-7_13

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