With the pension reform which provides for the increase from 62 to 64 years of the legal age of departure, the question of the ability of employees to remain at work until the end will arise even more acutely. Just like that of a possible reconversion in the second part of career.
While the examination of the bill in its home stretch, a study just published by the research department of the Ministry of Labor (Dares) on the 2019 database makes it possible to better measure these issues. It shows that 37% of employees believe they are not able to do the same job until retirement.
Even more surprising are the families of professions in which this feeling comes up the most. While many second-line professions are at the top of the list, those that actually come out on top are those in contact with the public – cashiers and self-service employees, social work, hotels and restaurants, but also bank and insurance.
The first physically demanding job – material handlers – is in sixth place. The care and social action professions also have a high proportion of employees who do not see themselves continuing until retirement.
An apparently paradoxical observation
The survey shows that 18% of people aged 50 or over do not consider their work sustainable until retirement. The proportion is all the more important since the survey took place four years ago, when there was no question of going up to 64 years old. It sounds like a warning ahead of the reform.
However, this proportion is low compared to the 59% of under-30s who do not feel able to hold on to their job until retirement. But this observation of a sustainability of work which increases with age “is only paradoxical in appearance”, underlines however the Dares.
A number of the 50-year-olds who responded to the survey benefit from end-of-career accommodation. And those who are no longer in employment, many at older ages, are not counted. In addition, many workers in arduous occupations leave them before reaching 50 years of age. Construction is a good example. This element reinforces the issue of the organization of retraining possibilities.
Enable employees to retrain
This is not the only one. The DARES also notes that “employees who change their professional situation more often come out of situations of unsustainable work than the others”. The change of position in the same establishment or establishment plays a significant role in reducing by 10 to 13 points the proportion of employees judging the continuation of their job until retirement unsustainable. But the impact is much greater in the event of a change of profession, with a drop of 20 points in the same probability.
Despite longer working hours, “self-employed status, with the autonomy it confers, is associated with better health and a more favorable balance between family life and professional life”, notes Dares.
The issue of allowing employees to retrain for a second part of their career is all the more important as it has an impact on the amount of the pension. Employees considering their job as unsustainable leave “twice as many as others before being able to claim a full pension (30% against 16%) and therefore receive pensions of a lower amount”, notes the study. A phenomenon that could increase with the transition to 64 years.