Guidance for Older Workers: An Overview of the Spanish Situation

This paper aims to attract attention on career guidance from an economic policy approach. Guidance will be defined as an economic instrument contributing to active ageing of the population. Taking Spain as an example, it will be demonstrated that there is a need for more policy making in third age guidance. After a brief revision of guidance provision in Spain, the methodology is based on a combination of techniques aimed at gathering qualitative and quantitative information, including statistical analysis data obtained from 369 personal interviews with the participants of the Guidance Service of the Business Confederation of the Province of Alicante (Spain), ten individual interviews with social partners: employers’ organisations and trade unions representatives, and a working session with six guidance experts. Spain is a country where some progress in terms of active labour policies, specially guidance, and older workers, has occurred in the recent years, but the age is not still considered as a relevant factor in policy making in this country. Age guidance is very well valued by social actors and old workers but still insufficient. Spanish survey showed that in order to get real effectiveness, career guidance must give response to old workers’ needs, by paying full and specific attention to this collective.