“It is a bit stressful, but I am happy to be here”: Pete Maie, 70, is tense at the beginning of a job interview in Colonia, west of Germany, for a position in part.
The blue shirt fills the pants, this former soldier and former responsible for logistics is no longer used for this type of exercise, five years after leaving the labor market.
An employee of unique elderly, an agency specialized in the recruitment of the elderly, guarantees their motivation to become a packages in a logistics group. “I am available immediately and I am ready to work while my body allows me,” says the candidate, to be found.
Keeping older people in the labor market is a priority for the Friedrich Merz government, faced with the growing deficit in the pension system, in a country that ages.
Last year, its cost amounted to 408 billion euros according to the Ministry of Labor, an increase of 60% compared to 2010. Contributions are no longer enough to cover the pensions of retirees, which now represent a quarter of the population, a situation aggravated by the shortage of qualified workers that attacks Germany.
Model in crisis
For years, German industrial competitiveness assured economic growth, which in return financed a generous social state. This model is now questioned.
The German economy should not experience marginal growth this year after two years of contraction, according to forecasts published by the German Institute of Economic Studies (IFW) and the IFO Institute.
“We do not want to erase it” or “abolish it”, but “we must reform it,” said the chancellor on Wednesday night after a coalition meeting, striving to present a united front with the SPD.
The “announced reforms”, ranging from retreats to unemployment benefits, should materialize with proposals “for the end of the year”, according to Friedrich Merz. Last year, more than 1.1 million older people worked beyond 67, an active population of around 46 million people.
To put more elders at work, the Government wishes to exempt taxes of up to 2,000 euros per month per month perceived after the legal retirement age, which will be taken to 67 years in 2031, against 66 years today.
“For those who are able to do so and who want it,” said Foreign Minister Merz, like Pete Maie.
The work that the latter coveted would not only serve to complete its 1,600 euros of monthly pension: “Today I miss a mission, the feeling of being useful,” he trusts in the AFP Mr. Maie.
Therefore, he says that it is “skeptics” about the effectiveness of the reform, which describes as “tax donation” with wealthy elderly and that would cost the State 2.8 billion euros per year.
Retirement at 70?
By 2027, an independent commission must offer structural reforms to perpetuate the pension system. This summer, the conservative minister of the Katherina Economy Reiche relaunched the debate when evoking a legal age of departure at age 70, aroused the anger of the unions and the social democrats.
It is true that it is effective in reducing deficits, this reform would push the employees of painful trades, less capable of converting after 60 years, towards unemployment, assures Johannes Geyer of the Berlin Diw Institute.
Therefore, the economist asks the government to “encourage companies to adapt their positions to the elderly.”
“Most of our client companies continue to discriminate against the elderly,” says Tobias Bell, head of unique elderly people who claim that this age group would be “more productive and less absent.”
At 65, Rainer Gantermann, retired for two years, has been gathering full -time semiconductors near Colonia. Faced with the young colleagues to whom he judges “lazy”, he proudly claims to be “punctual, diligent and never sick.”
Source: BFM TV
