When Daniel Valencia (51 years old, Puente Alto) lost his job, he thought it would just be another cycle and that he would return to the labor market in a short time.
But it was not like that.
He says that he has been without a stable job for three years now, he has applied for nearly 1,500 positions, but does not receive responses.
He is a risk preventionist, with three postgraduate degrees, and has spent his career mainly in the educational area: he worked for 25 years as head of operations at a university in Santiago.
But none of that history guarantees him today obtaining a job with a contract, with which he can cover his expenses plus those of his family: he has three children, two already graduated, and one still studying.
“They say they want to extend the retirement age to 70, but the reality is that at 50 no one is hiring anymore.
It is the market that is not providing the opportunities, the experience of the older people does not interest them, there is no evaluation of the trajectory.
The market retired me,” says Daniel, who to survive installs cell phone antennas with his 53-year-old brother-in-law, who is also unemployed.
According to a study by the Latin American Center for Economic and Social Policies of the Catholic University (Clapes UC), those over 50 years of age are one of the age ranges that have taken the longest to recover pre-pandemic employment levels.
Today the unemployment rates in this segment of the population are 1.6% times what they were before covid19 and, according to calculations, there are more than 297 thousand jobs missing to recover the employment rate they had before March 2020, when The health emergency began.
In parallel, the time it takes to find a job again has increased: 7.1 months for those between 50 and 59 years old and more than 11 months for those over 60 years old.
But about 24.3% of unemployed people over 50 years of age face stages of long-term unemployment (12 months or more), surpassing other age groups.
The reality that more and more people are living in this situation worries experts: 65% of unemployed people over 55 years of age are household providers, "which can exacerbate financial tensions, ultimately translating into an increase in poverty," as warns a study from mid-2023 by the Libertad y Desarrollo (LyD) think tank.
Another element to consider is the aging of the population.
“Between 2010 and 2023, the proportion of those over 55 years of age in the workforce rose from 15% to 20%,” notes the same study.
In this scenario, the labor market figures are not auspicious.
The survey How do talents work today?, carried out by the Laborum jobs portal between March and June 2023 among different hiring specialists, revealed that 52% of Chilean companies did not hire people over 55 years of age in the period of one year. anus.
High expectations, a weak market and ageism
Carlos Román, executive director of Senior Lab, a social innovation laboratory for old age that works with a network of 14 companies, has been studying the challenges and opportunities of the so-called
silver economy
for several years , one linked to demographic change due to the aging of the population. population.
He notes with concern that while trends speak of increased longevity, there is no real concern to take care of the phenomenon.
“There is talk that we are going to live to be more than 100 years old, it is a reality that we are seeing more and more, but in general as a society we are not measuring the magnitude of the challenge that lies ahead of us and we address it in a very superficial way,” he warns. he.
Among the factors that he observes within employers for not hiring older people, Román says that the main one is ageism, that is, age discrimination.
“There is a very strong issue of ageism, biases and prejudices.
That is the main reason that we have detected among the difficulties so that those over 55 can better enter the labor market,” he explains.
“There are high prejudices associated with being older, that you are slower, that things are more difficult for you, that you take longer.
They are biases.
“We see many intergenerational challenges in companies and it is an issue associated with the lack of adaptability of everyone in general,” she adds.
For Carmen Cifuentes, researcher at Clapes UC, the high expectations of job seekers and the weakness of the economy play a central role in this phenomenon that is beginning to grow in Chile.
“The recovery of the labor market has occurred with a lag behind economic activity and in the midst of the weakening of the economy (according to preliminary figures, Chile decreased 0.2% in 2023),” she says.
In this context, he adds: “What happens is that in general the job offers do not meet the expectations of a person of that age in terms of positions for which they can apply and in terms of remuneration, this makes them take longer to receive. find a job that fits your needs.”
An alert for mental health
The consequences of the phenomenon of lack of employment for those over 50 not only hit the economy, threatening to increase poverty rates, but also have a direct correlation with the state of the population's mental health.
According to the Clapes report, there is evidence that people who are unemployed for long periods have at least twice the risk of mental illness, especially depression and anxiety disorders, compared to those who are employed.
“The loss of the work routine, the stigma associated with unemployment, the uncertainty about the future of work and the decrease in income generate stress, anxiety and reduced self-esteem, contributing to the potential development of depression,” the study indicates.
But also, warns Carmen Cifuentes, there are negative effects on human capital.
“Digital transformation accelerated greatly during the pandemic and people who have fewer digital skills are less in demand for these jobs,” she explains.
Faced with this, the researcher suggests that public policies for this segment must be expanded.
Currently, the government's National Training and Employment Service grants the Greater Experience subsidy, a program with which companies that hire people over 55 years of age who are unemployed receive a bonus of up to 60% of the Minimum Monthly Income (which equivalent to about $284) during the first six months of the contract, and 20% for the following six months.
The benefit also provides a training bonus of around $400 for each person hired.
However, the annual quotas to access the program are only 500.
“These types of subsidies should continue to appear with increasing force.
We must face the challenge of demographic change with the speed it requires, but we must do it as soon as possible so that the consequences do not arrive suddenly and also so that it does not generate generational friction or quarrels,” explains Carlos Román.
Meanwhile, Daniel Valencia says he must live with the anguish of an unstable future.
“Every day I wake up with the uncertainty of what is going to happen.
Bills have to be paid, but also if I have a health emergency I will end up in a hospital, because I have no possibility of paying isapre (private insurance companies) ″, he reflects.
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