WILLINGNESS OF SOCIETY AND EMPLOYERS TO TRAIN EMPLOYEES OF PRE-RETIREMENT AGE

Abstract

In the context of expanding coverage of digitalization in all spheres of society, as well as the steady aging of the population around the world, the article considers the problem of training and retraining of older employees and the attitude of employers to this. The purpose of the survey was to identify the attitude of employers towards training employees over the age of 50, including digital skills, as well as to identify em‐ ployers' demand for such programs from the employment service. The scientific novelty of the study is due to: 1) the choice of the object of study - employees of companies over 50 years old do not often fall into the perspective of researchers. The uniqueness of this group is that, on the one hand, these employees are still of working age and actively influence the labor market, and on the other hand, they often experience dis‐ crimination from employers and the consequences of ageism; 2) the opinion of employers is studied (more often in studies it is employees who are interviewed, insufficient attention is paid to the motivation of em‐ ployers). The scientific result is a generalization of expert opinions of representatives of employers of the old industrial region regarding the readiness to train employees over 50 years old. The data was obtained on the basis of the author's tools by conducting a survey of employers in 2019 together with the Depart‐ ment of Labor and Employment of the Sverdlovsk Region. Approbation of the author's technology allows us to conclude that the developed methodology is relevant for its further use in monitoring studies of em‐

ployment problems and vocational training/retraining of older employees. The SPSS package was used to process the survey results. The article concludes that employers are not sufficiently interested in training workers of pre-retirement and retirement age, which may in the future have a negative impact on both the situation in the labor market of this socio-demographic group and the development of the labor market as a whole. In addition, insufficient awareness of the heads of small businesses, as well as enterprises located in small towns, about the services of the employment service in relation to employers was revealed