Bundesagentur für Arbeit, the Public Employment Service (PES) of Germany, hosted a Peer Review on Public Employment Services and Older Workers on May 10-11 in Nuremberg. Following this encounter, several European PES expressed an interest in a visit to the Bundesagentur für Arbeit, to gain practical insights into their experience with measures to encourage the hiring or retention of older workers.

The Bundesagentur für Arbeit has recently piloted various models of qualification counselling for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and has successfully implemented a wage subsidy programme for employers, which offers a preferential rate of subsidy for up-skilling older workers.

The support for transfer visit, which took place on 5 September 2012, focused on the experience of Bundesagentur für Arbeit with qualification counselling, wage subsidies and marketing strategies to encourage the (re)employment of older workers. In addition to German participants, PES representatives from the Netherlands, Hungary, and the UK attended the event.  

During the last decade PES increasingly have to cope with a new challenge: to provide effective employment assistance to jobseekers close to pensionable age. In some countries they are also expected to guide employers and older employees towards age-sensitive human resource management.

Organised by the European Commission’s DG for Employment, Social Affairs & Inclusion, the Peer Reviews are an opportunity to exchange information on successful and promising practices, approaches, organisational structures and tools used in the delivery of public employment services (PESs). They aim to identify good practice by sharing experiences between a “host PES” and participating “peer PESs” from other countries. The exercise consists of a two-way exchange guided by the question “what works and what does not work and why”.

Click here to download the report about the study visit and workshop at the PES of Germany.