MORE AND MORE BULGARIANS WORK AFTER RETIREMENT, BULGARIAN INDUSTRIAL ASSOCIATION SURVEY SHOWS

In 2018, the number of pensioners with a personal pension who are in employment reached 295 500, with the number of working pensioners increasing by around 30 per cent between 2014 and 2018. These are the trends that are naturally due to the demographic crisis, which is growing into a catastrophe that we have not yet realized, Svetlana Doncheva, head of the "Project Management Center" at the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA), told BTA.

Recently at an international conference were presented some of the results of the BIA project "Active aging – the way to success", funded by the European Social Fund through the Operational Programme "Human Resources Development", on which BIA is working in the period 2019-2021.

Manufacturing, education and healthcare are the three sectors where the ageing of the workforce is felt most strongly, Doncheva noted. The "arena of youth" are the IT sector, the financial and insurance sectors.

The lack of workforce is felt in almost all spheres of economic life and the lack of highly qualified specialists directly affects the competitiveness of Bulgarian companies. In just ten years, according to the latest census, the number of people of working age in Bulgaria has decreased by 415 000. This trend will deepen if there are no adequate policies, Doncheva said.

Generation T

The positive trend of increasing life expectancy naturally leads to an increase in working life. For 2022 in Bulgaria, men who have reached 64 years and 5 months with 39 years and 2 months of service and women who have reached 61 years and 10 months with 36 years and 2 months of service are entitled to a retirement pension. Gradually, by 2037, the two genders will equalise in the age criterion and retire at 65. This process of longer and longer working lives, combined with negative demographic processes leading to a reduction in the total working age population, determines the growing importance of the so-called Generation T (traditionalists), the expert said. These are the people who grew up in the period of the consolidation of socialism and the state-planned economy and who have to prolong their stay at work because there is no one to replace them, Doncheva added. She pointed out that this problem is particularly sensitive in traditional industries, such as manufacturing, adding that it will get worse. Doncheva reminded that the demographic replacement rate in Bulgaria has an extremely negative value - 69, which means that for every 100 people who come out of working age, 69 replace them, the remaining 31 do not and they are usually replaced again by people who are already of retirement age, the expert said. According to her, we will increasingly see working retirees.

Other industries that report large numbers of working people, both pre- and post-retirement age, are education and healthcare. There is a terrible shortage of staff in health care, and in education, although much has been done in recent years to make this profession more attractive to young people, there are still not enough positive results. The proportion of pre-retirement and post-retirement teachers is still high, and one of the reasons is precisely the lack of young specialists to replace them, the expert said.

Working after retirement is not that scary

Actually, according to experts, working past retirement age isn't that scary. It is a matter of personal perception and necessity or need, Svetlana Doncheva said, but added that in order for this to actually happen, it is also necessary to provide the appropriate working conditions, in line with the needs of the older generations. These people become the most valuable employees and they must be retained. More and more employers are becoming aware of this, the expert said. The most expensive measures to implement are those related to adapting jobs and improving working conditions to the needs of Generation T. Other measures that are recommended to be included in companies' internal programmes are related to enforcing a new understanding that the specificities of different generations should be used to create a working environment that highlights the strengths of each generation, promotes mutual understanding and solidarity between generations in the interest of common business goals.

Youth versus experience

Usually in a work environment where people from different generations have to work in a team, conflicts are related to attitudes towards work and new technologies. They are also the most frequent precondition for discrimination in the workplace. It is not news that older people find it harder to adopt technological innovations, while their younger colleagues learn them more quickly. At a certain point, the traditional hierarchy breaks down and younger people advance more in the profession because they absorb technology faster, and then the prejudice against older people that they are already unfit for work is created, the expert's observations show. She said the task of team leaders is to create an atmosphere of solidarity because, in fact, Generation T does not mind learning and absorbing technical innovations, but it needs enough time to do so. The expert's observations show that older employees prefer not to go on traditional courses to improve their digital skills, but rather want this to take the form of exchanging experiences in the workplace and through company training.

Conflict in the multigenerational workplace is also generated by the elderly towards the young, born out of Generation T's understanding that success and advancement in the hierarchy come after years of hard work, and the misunderstanding of the young, for whom success and advancement can happen "overnight."

Regarding the motivational factors that drive different generations, the BIA study debunks a myth about younger employees. For members of Generation Z (those born between 1993 and 2001), it is not the size of the salary but meaningful work that is paramount. For them to feel engaged, their work needs to be challenging and varied. They are looking for exciting projects and endeavours, causes to which they can give all their time, energy and passion.

Generation T in Europe

The eDigiStars project, in which BIA is a partner with 19 other organisations from 8 Danube countries, aimed at enhancing the digital skills of Generation T, is based on the common understanding that regardless of nationality, older employees have their place in the labour market, even in digital technology professions. The needs of Generation T in Central and Eastern European countries are similar and require similar measures - appropriate motivation, tailored training and learning content, and a recognised certification system to determine the quality of training. Above all, however, is the change in the attitudes of older employees, who need to realise that modern work requires continuous improvement and upgrading of existing knowledge and skills.