VOCATIONAL TRAINING NO 19 EUROPEAN JOURNAL CEDEFOP

Making older adults more employable – can it be done? extent to which workers can be employed at physical locations other than their present ones), quantitative employability (the willingness of workers to work vari-able hours), functional mobility (the abil-ity of workers to perform multiple tasks within one functional area), qualitative employability (the ability of workers to operate in a range of different functional areas), willingness to undergo training (the extent to which workers are prepared and motivated to undergo training) and motivation for change (the extent to which workers are motivated to bring about change and help to maintain the dynamic of their own organisation). There is a perception that as people get older they can no longer “keep up”, that they are no longer able to be as flexible as they need to be and above all that they cannot learn new skills. It goes without saying that the ability to learn (new skills) is an absolute sine qua non if one is to remain in employment or return to em-ployment. The figures show that the pro-portion of people in the higher age cat-egories has fallen drastically over the last few decades. In 1994 the rate of employment for the population as a whole in the European Union was 55%, but for those in the 50-64 age group it was only 50 % (compared with 81.7 % for the age group 25-46) (De arbeidsmarkt in Vlaanderen, 1996). Ac-cording to Eurostat figures, Belgium (in 1995) had the lowest level of male em-ployment for the age group 50- 64. Afte