6. Okt 2013

Save the date – LinkAge final conference

The second transnational meeting of the LinkAge (LinkAge: Labour Market Integration of Vulnerable Age Groups through Social Dialogue) project consortium was organized at the Université libre de Bruxelles/Institut of Sociologie in Brussels, Belgium on 19th – 20th of September 2013.
Following the first transantional meeting, held at the premises of the Centre for Social Innovation on 28th – 29th of January 2013, each project partner presented employment trends and labour market situation for younger and older workers in their country.

Please find the WP3 poster providing an overview about labour market situation in Austria, presented by ZSI in the list of document below.

The findings from concluded interviews under the WP5 with trade unions, employers’ and employees’ representatives in Austria, Belgium, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom were presented and a comparative overview by the LinkAge external expert Mr. Miguel Pajares provided. The major themes of this research exercise included topics such as

• the extent of trade unions representing the interests and needs of older and younger workers; 
• the role of social dialogue;  the existence of ‘active ageing’ policies;
• and the promotion of vulnerable groups on the labour market by TU and employees’ organisations.

The Austrian sample was based on 10 interviews organized in April to May 2013 with six employees‘ representatives, so the Technical University (TU) at federal and regional level, Chamber of Labour, work council member, further two interviews with employers‘ representatives, one human resource manager from private company with less than 500 employees and one person involved in policy making at regional level covering in total six Austrian regions, so Burgenland, Lower Austria, Styria, Vienna, Vorarlberg, Upper Austria.

The project consortium also discussed the initial findings from the interviews organized under WP6 with the persons under 25s and over 55s where the participation in the trade union decision-making process of vulnerable groups and awareness of their employment rights and gender equality was thoroughly investigated. The final Austrian report has been already prepared and is based on 16 interviews implemented in the period June to August 2013 in five Austrian regions, so Lower Austria, Styria, Vienna, Voralberg, Upper Austria with eight persons belonging to the age group “25 and younger” and  8 persons from the age group “above 55”.

All country reports including comparative overviews for each workpackage will be made available on the project website.

Back to back to the project consortium meeting, the first “LinkAge Information Exchange” was organized at the premises of the Institut of Sociologie on 20th of September 2013. The results of the LinkAge project so far were presented and discussed with a range of national and EU-level stakeholders. Three high level speakers, so Ms. Anne-Sophie Parent - AGE Platform Europe, Mr. Salvatore Marra - European Trade Union Confederation, Mr. Xavier Verboren - European Economic and Social Committee, contributed to the  discussions with their inputs on intergenerational dynamics:

• youth, crisis and inclusion in the labour market
• age discrimination and diversity at work: the role of social dialogue.

Save the date – LinkAge final conference
The final conference of this one-year project will be held at the premises of the lead partner, at the University of Barcelona, Spain on 13th of December 2013. The conference programme and details on how to register will be published shortly on the project website.

For more information related to the project implementation in Austria with research results, please contact: machacova@zsi.at or manahl@zsi.at.

Downloads:

Verwandte Artikel:

• Publikation: LinkAge - Labour Market Integration of Vulnerable Age Groups through Social Dialogue

Tags: ageing society, labour market, social cohesion, social inclusion, social innovation