What does an older person have to do to still get a job on the labour market? Andreas Rudolph's assessment, summarised at the Swiss Future of Work Forum on 15 May in Berne: "Employees must be prepared to take stock of where they stand and what they still want to achieve by their mid-40s at the latest. Politics must make the labour market more flexible and adapt social security accordingly. And: the media must stop bad-mouthing the employability of people over 50 on the labour market. This considerably reduces their chances with employers.

Rudolph, initiator of the Forum and Managing Director at Lee Hecht Harrison Switzerland, knows what he is talking about. An LHH study has examined the chances of the "Ü50" on the job market: They are no worse off than other population groups. But they have to be flexible, market themselves better and also accept so-called "bow careers". In other words, they must be prepared to accept less qualified jobs with lower salaries. The decisive factor is the willingness to undergo further training at an early stage, if possible before they are laid off.

The "linear career" is out

That sounds easy. But there's a catch. The generation born in the 60s - and probably some younger ones as well - have entered their working lives with different expectations. Namely: from training to retirement, career and salary are constantly on the rise, work is of central importance, leisure time is primarily understood as the time when one is not working, and the choice of career is one of the most important decisions in life. Working life was still the central pivotal point of life for this generation of today's over 50s, with a clear starting and end point. The aim was to maximise working life: to work and earn as much as possible. The pension system is also geared to this. Or the repayment of mortgages.

For younger generations, on the other hand, the focus is less and less on work. It serves to provide the necessary resources for the general shaping of life. Working life is part of an optimisation of the so-called work-life balance. Or, as one resourceful mind recently put it, a rejection of the burnout generation. This concept includes job changes, lifelong learning, further development of skills, trying out new things. Work as much as necessary to enable self-realization.

The "wave career" needs space

These generations are already growing into the labour market in a much more flexible way. This can be seen from the increasing popularity of part-time work, the demand for a better work-life balance, the willingness to be more mobile, but also the willingness to temporarily take advantage of unemployment insurance if there is no suitable follow-up solution. One could speak of a "wave career".

Rudolph's demands will one day be met by themselves, when today's "young" will one day be part of the "Ü50" themselves. But this will require other concepts for the labour market, which must be implemented today. Framework conditions that take up the life and work views of the younger generations and give them room for the wave career. This is the great challenge for today's politicians, most of whom were born in the 1960s and 1970s themselves and who consider a "linear" career to be normal. They must find transitional solutions for the older people of the present while at the same time taking account of social changes for future generations without undermining their social security. Bridging pensions for older workers alone are not enough.