Besides the central questions of wage negotiations for both sides of industry the subject "elderly employees" is of great importance at concession bargaining. The enterprises increasingly are becoming aware of the need to run a demography resistant staffing policy for which they need a legal and collectively agreed framework. Therefore the German employers’ federation of the metal manufacturing and electrical industries (Gesamtmetall) commissioned the Ifo Institute to repeat and update a survey from the year 2003. Considering the ongoing debates about old-age provisions, taking stock of what the existing instruments like part time work, deferred compensation and a particular fund (MetallRente) have brought about appears to be important. The results of the survey are to improve the basis of further arrangements.
The main sources of information is a postal survey conducted by Ifo. 6.000 firms from the metal and electrical industries in Germany are included in the survey. Results for both the former East- and former West-Germany are provided.
Project related postal business survey
Both for employers and employees there is a great acceptance of part-time work as a means for the factual early transition to a post-labour phase of life. This is changing with policies which stop the support of relevant tarif agreements and is in general willing to extend the activ working phase and to ensure the efficiency of the public pension system.
The company pension scheme turned out to be an area-wide instrument in metal manufacturing and electrical industries. Predominant is the deferred compensation pension plan provision financed by employees.
Hofmann, Herbert, "Part-Time Work for Older Workers and Employment-based Pensions in Metal Manufacturing and Electrical Industries", Ifo Schnelldienst, No. 3/2008, p. 3-8.
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