Birgit van Beek-Evers (64) wants to decide for herself when she stops working. Even when in 2019, after the umpteenth cutbacks at the Eindhovens Dagblad, lost her job as a secretary, that thought continued to dominate. “I had 38 years on the clock and thought: I am far from done.”
She updated her resume, refreshed her LinkedIn page, and attended networking events. Van Beek-Evers applied a lot, not for everything, but for jobs that appealed to her, often in the administrative and social domain. “Usually I called ahead and asked a few questions. Those were fun conversations. They wrote down my name and I sent my letter with a good feeling.”
Still, she often received a brief standard rejection. When she called—which she always did—she was told someone else had better papers. She can’t prove that it was her age. “At one point I just said: ‘I’m not very young anymore’.”
Until she read about it in the newspaper Buddy Werken, a project that connects unemployed people over 50 with employers within the government and the business community, who volunteer as a coach in the search for a job.
Van Beek-Evers immediately registered, just like 161 others from the Eindhoven region. She’s not the only one struggling to find work, despite the current labor shortage.
At one point I just said: ‘I’m not very young anymore’
Because even though the number of unemployed in the Netherlands is falling strong among young peopleand calculated the CBS that more people are also working among 45 to 75-year-olds, the number of over-45s who have been unemployed for more than twelve months does not want to fall. In fact, in an overstrained labor market, their numbers grew from 40,000 in 2020 to 48,000 in 2022.
Out research by the Central Planning Bureau 2015 shows that long-term unemployment among the elderly is not a cyclical problem, but a structural problem. They do not lose their job more often than young people, but if they do become unemployed, the chance of long-term unemployment is almost double the average. The Planning Bureau therefore argued for reforms in the labor market at the time.
Stigmas
It is not a reform, but Buddy Werken is trying to look at unemployment in a different way, says Yvonne van Mierlo (56), director of private equity firm Ergon. Together with the UWV and five municipalities in the Eindhoven region, she set up the project in 2020. “There are still too many stigmas: that the elderly are not flexible, that they cannot handle digital resources – we thought that had to be done differently.”
Van Mierlo calls the over-50s the “new gold” of society in times of labor shortages. “They have a lot of experience and can therefore be deployed in many places. And they are also easier in practical terms: they don’t have to pick up children from daycare, for example.”
Buddy Werken was created during a brainstorm about a project for Perspective on Work, an initiative of Social Affairs and Employment to bring together supply and demand of labor in various regions. 2 million euros was available for each region, for a period of two years.
The Eindhoven project is now two years later. “We link a job seeker over the age of 50 to an employer, the buddy,” says project leader Sil de Graaf (56). “In the three months that follow, the job seekers have network conversations, they receive explanations about CVs and application skills, and monthly contact with the buddy plus a number of training days.”
Employers that participate include Eindhoven Airport, municipalities, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, the Woonbedrijf and De Lage Landen, a lease company of Rabobank.
De Graaf saw how employers’ prejudices about the over-50s were disappearing: they don’t have that much trouble with changes, are flexible, rarely ill and can handle digital resources very well. “And in turn, the over-50s see again what a modern organization requires: that you can be deployed much more flexibly and that work is broader than one skill.”
more visible
For example, Birgit van Beek-Evers was linked to a director of Summa College, an MBO institution in Eindhoven. “She gave me tips that I could also throw a ball in other sectors.” She also walked a few times. “I took advantage of that.” It may sound strange, she says, “but because I had to take action myself to arrange those volunteer days, I learned to be more proactive. I became more visible.”
Many employers have a positive experience of the project, says Susan Roijmans (52), who participated three times as a buddy. As a People & Organization manager at Woonbedrijf, a housing corporation in the Eindhoven region, she is responsible for all personnel matters. “That’s why I wanted to participate. I have had many job interviews in my life, and I know how important it is that both sides examine whether the company and the applicant are a good match.”
For example, Roijmans supported a woman who was looking for an administrative job. “‘Cause I’m good with language,” she said. For me, that includes the skills of structure and order, but that’s not what our conversations were about. I said to her, “Ask friends and family what your language skills look like in their eyes.” As a result, it appeared that her strength lay in writing poems, rather than meticulous reporting.”
After a number of job applications, Roijmans and the woman started looking for a place to work. “She has not yet found paid work, but is now volunteering at a writer’s cafe. That is also an outcome – for me it is about the honest conversation.”
Another job seeker whom Roijmans supervised was Stan (57), a project manager at a bank for many years. “He applied a lot for project manager jobs, but when I started talking to him, we found out that he especially likes the contact with people. Sincerely listening to what is important to the other person – that was easy for him.” Stan now works at the Woonbedrijf, just like Roijmans, as a resident experience advisor.
It’s nice to see that image of rigid over-50s slowly tilting
A more positive attitude
Roijmans enthusiastically told colleagues and network contacts about the project and “they registered immediately.” The buddies are now also in an app group in which they share tips for their candidates. “It is nice to see that I see that among employers that image of rigid over-50s is slowly tilting.”
But, says project leader Sil De Graaf, it only works if the job seekers are motivated and open to work. “That wasn’t always the case. In addition, we extended the project to young people, but contact was more difficult there. It is a different target group that often has to deal with more problems than unemployment: insecurity, addictions, unpleasant home situations.”
A survey and interviews among the candidates and buddies, conducted by students of Fontys Hogeschool Eindhoven, led by Kristel Mooij (27), consultant at social consultancy BRAM, show that employers also developed a more positive attitude towards the over-50s on the labor market. “We saw that when communication went well, prejudices about the over-50s disappeared.”
In addition, Mooij examined via LinkedIn how many of them had eventually found work: 67 percent turned out to be the case. “We couldn’t find everyone, so it could be that the percentage is actually higher. But this is already a good result.”
Birgit van Beek-Evers now falls within that 67 percent. After two years in the WW she got a call from Ergon. Whether she was interested in the management assistant position, a position she had previously applied for and been rejected for. She had to laugh about it. “I said on the phone: you don’t have to send that vacancy, it’s still in my folder.”
She now has a one-year contract. “Without the buddy trajectory, this would not have been possible,” she says, because it made her visible in the employers’ networks. She now feels valued, in her place. “I will stay here for the time being, but now I can decide for myself when I will stop working.”
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