Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

education, computer literacy, knowledge of foreign languages and several soft skills are
demanded for many jobs. Under conditions of high unemployment, the firms can afford the
selection of candidates who exactly match the job profile. Some interviewees even
expressed the opinion that a generational change is needed before workers will have
acquired skills needed in the globalised economy. My interviewees also claimed that the
formerly dismissal-proof jobs regardless of actual performance have brought about a low
work ethic in the current cohort of older workers and have not taught them to invest in
themselves which makes adaptation to the present-day conditions all the more difficult.
Another development observed by some shop stewards was the lower appreciation and
lower standing of older workers when compared to the time before the transition which had
a bearing on the general attitude towards them, on remuneration, recruitment and
promotion:
“So-called older workers were somehow differently reckoned with. (…) [PA: Why has that
changed?] I don´t know, maybe therefore because before, as I remember it, I think that older
workers possibly were the majority. And they somehow dominated the firm. Nowadays, as I have
already said, young folks dominate, and maybe that´s the reason.” (Firm PL-6_TU)
Those developments, which were a natural consequence of market adjustments,
worsened in my eyes the opportunities for the prolongation of working life.
In the studied firms, most new hiring was conducted for manufacturing positions. There,
young workers (below 40 or below 30, depending on the firm) were preferred because of
assumed better physical fitness. Also the position of postmen and of sales representatives
was considered as too burdening for older workers, and even for female applicants. The
interviewees argued with the wear and tear as the inescapable effects of working long years
in the given occupation – an argument in line with that of ´task-contingent age limits´ built
into certain jobs voiced in the German scholarly discourse (Behrens 1999).
In opinion of firm experts, older workers do not match the job profile in the sales
department, marketing, and in other departments dealing with new challenges of the market
economy and with international cooperation and competition. In the eyes of the
interviewees, older persons are not fit for those tasks due to “bad habits from old system” –
entitlement mentality, ineffective working style, low motivation. Older workers educated in
the former system do not, according to the observation of interviewees, speak foreign
languages besides Russian, and have no computer skills. Due to high costs of further
training, some firms prefer the hiring of persons who exactly match the needed
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