Retirement Recruitment

The debate that later retirement of seniors reduces the hiring of youth has received new attention. Paul Mohnen published a paper on the “retirement slowdown on the US youth labor market” , which demonstrates this “crowding out effect”. Moreover, the recruitment of middle aged workers is also affected, as job changes slowed down for these age groups. The surprising finding is that higher skilled youth suffers the largest reduction in employment opportunities and become “pulled” into lower skilled jobs as jo offers for lower skilled persons remained high during the observation periods (until 2017!). This evidence suggests that the well-documented firm-level effect of fewer retirement means less recruitment holds also for society as a whole. Knowing that recruitment during a recession affects young workers more than persons already in employment, the macro level effects in 2025 will be rather unfavorable for young labor market entrants. (Image Frans Hals 1625, Odessa Museum in Berlin exhibition 2025).