Right: French workers recently went on strike and rallied in protest against the Sarkozy Government's plan to raise the retiring age from sixty to 62. Other nations, including Australia, have a retirement age of 65, but French workers have always shown fierce pride in what they see as their country's social enlightenment and they are reluctant to give up their present conditions.
Further implications
The French Labour Minister, Eric Woerth, has noted, 'Working longer is inevitable.' This judgement appears to be so. Ageing populations and a shrinking tax base are on a collision course around the developed world.The issue appears to be not so much whether retirement ages will increase but how this development will be accommodated.
Clearly employers' attitudes will need to change unless elderly workers are to be expected to complete their working lives in jobs that do not properly utilise their capabilities. There is the possibility that many older workers will complete their working lives in part-time, menial jobs because the prejudices of employers debar them from other work, including more demanding jobs they previously occupied.
Another possibility is that attitudes will shift and working conditions will become more flexible, allowing older workers to remain in employment (perhaps in part-time jobs) that takes advantage of their previous experience and abilities.
A dwindling workforce may well compel employers to make more substantial use of older workers than is currently happening. Australia is importing skilled labour from overseas through its skilled migration program. This is likely to continue; however, it is also possible that encouraging older workers to remain in employment will become another way of addressing skills shortages. Should this happen, older workers with needed skills may find themselves in a good bargaining position and able to demand desirable conditions and remuneration. Older workers without sought-after skills will be in a far more unfortunate position.