Nothing ventured,nothing gained! How and under which conditions employers provide employability-enhancing practices to their older workers

Employability-enhancing practices usually refer to training or courses, but also practices directed towards older workers to sustain their work capability can be embraced by this term. In the context of an ageing population and workforce, older workers' labour market participation gains an increasingly important role. Therefore, the importance of employability-enhancing practices is noted as a solution to sustain their employment. In this study, we focus on employer-provided employability practices for older workers. We answer the following research question: which practices do employers use to enhance their older workers' employability and under which conditions are these practices adopted. Analyses on Dutch corporate data (N = 860) show that employers mainly provide employability-enhancing practices that are easily implemented and not expensive. This finding replicates prior research and clarifies that job redesign should be considered as a possibility to keep older workers in the labour market. Furthermore, our study shows that both organizational and labour market characteristics affect employers' decisions whether to provide employability-enhancing practices for their older workers. This suggests that policy measures might be necessary to assimilate investments in employability-enhancing practices across organizations.