Iñigo Béjar: “Between hiring someone over 50 and a young person, I’ll take the former”

Posted on: 01 / 04 / 2024 | 0 Comentarios | Tags: industrial combustion, Professional market

The Basque professional market discriminates against the elderly, but there are beginning to be exceptions. Iñigo Béjar, co-founder of E&M Combustión: “Between hiring someone over 50 and a young person, I’ll take the former.”

The Basque professional market discriminates against the elderly. This is what is known as “ageism” and there are multiple statistics that prove it. To begin with, that of unemployment. When a person of a certain age falls into unemployment, it is very difficult for them to get out. That is why those over 50 years of age account for long-term unemployment, that which lasts more than one year.

Specifically, there are more than 47,300 unemployed Basques over fifty and of them 30,000 have been in this situation for more than twelve months, 56% of the total.

As much as the figure may be inflated by early retirements, it is a clear example of the resistance of companies to hiring older people. Something was seen in a recent experiment by the Iseak Foundation: hundreds of applications were sent with two twin resumes, in which the only difference was their age: the younger one (35 years old) received twice as many invitations as the 49-year-old one. .

The Basquel professional market discriminates against the elderly

But this reality also coexists with another and that is that companies increasingly value “senior” talent, especially in the current context of lack of professionals in multiple sectors. Companies warn again and again that they cannot find qualified profiles to fill their vacancies in a bustling professional market that continues to reach historical highs and has already settled at over one million contributors.

The shortage of workers is a factor that drives hiring of all age groups, but there is also a growing interest in older generations and their attitude at work. “If you give me the choice between hiring someone over 50 years old and a young guy, I’ll take the first one,” says Iñigo Béjar, founder of E&M Combustión, which has just signed the Venezuelan César Flores, who is now 55. According to explains in this report from EL CORREO, which tells two other similar stories. Employers value the culture of effort of older workers and their higher level of commitment.

In order to support the employability of the unemployed over 50 years of age, the Basque Government launched a program in mid-November that subsidizes the hiring of these profiles with up to €17,000 on the condition that the unemployed person has been in employment for less than a year on this situation. Since it was implemented, 215 applications have already been received, 132 in Bizkaia, 53 in Gipuzkoa and 34 in Álava. 23% comes from the manufacturing industry and almost 22% from trade and vehicle repair.

Finding a way out for the elderly is critical in this aging Euskadi in which the active population over 55 years of age has not stopped growing in recent years and is already close to 250,000 people, above those under 25 years of age, who are only 236,000 and falling.