Recruitment and selection of older workers

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