Close to 500,000 working people aged 55 or older (specifically, 497,600) remain registered in the unemployment lists in Spain. This implies that approximately one in five unemployed individuals belongs to this age group, despite the fact that the labor market has reached a historical high with 22.8 million people employed, according to the Más Sénior Foundation.
Based on the data from the Active Population Survey (EPA) for the second quarter, the entity emphasizes that, although the Spanish economy has managed to reduce the unemployment rate below 10% (9.87%) for the first time since 2008, unemployment among seniors has barely decreased by 10,600 people in the last twelve months.
The situation is even more delicate in the group of those over 60 years old, where unemployment has increased by 6% year-on-year, which means 13,500 more unemployed than a year ago.
The general director of the Más Sénior Foundation, Sonia Catalán, has pointed out that these figures highlight that "getting older continues to be a barrier to returning to work." At the same time, she has warned that the lack of reintegration into the labor market from those ages complicates the consolidation of contributions for future pensions and causes a direct cost for companies and for society as a whole due to the loss of knowledge and productivity.
In light of the progressive demographic aging, the organization urges companies to combat ageism in selection processes, review biases in hiring, and bet on generational diversity to not let senior talent slip away.