[2008.07.19] 法国商业：老有所用

Business in France
法国商业

Jobs for the old
老有所用

Jul 17th 2008 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition

France’s negative attitude to older workers creates a business opportunity
法国对老龄工人的消极态度催生新的商业机会

IN 2007 a French food company wanted to buy a family-owned firm in India. The patriarch was 72, and the French firm wanted to send someone of similar experience to talk to him. But because of its youthful corporate culture-most people are hustled out of the door in their mid-40s-it had no one to send. In the end, through Experconnect, an employment agency in Paris which places retired people, it found a 58- year-old former head of a European consumer-goods firm, and sent him out to Mumbai.

2007年，一个法国食品公司想要并购印度的家族企业。该企业的创办人已经72岁，法国公司打算派出一名资历相当的代表与之谈判。但由于其崇尚年轻的企业文化，员工大多数都刚刚40出头，因此最终无人可派。最后，通过一个位于巴黎专门雇佣退休人员的工作中介 EXperconnect，才找到了一位58岁，欧洲消费品公司的前领导，将其派往Mumbai

France has a poor record when it comes to keeping older people in the workforce. The retirement age is 60, not 65 as in most developed countries. In 2005 only 37.8% of people aged 55-64 had jobs, versus 56.8% in Britain and 44.9% in Germany. The main reason is that in the 1980s, when there was high unemployment, the government promoted early retirement. That entrenched the idea that older workers were less productive, says Caroline Young, Experconnect’s founder.

法国向来对老龄劳动力利用不佳。平均的退休年龄是60，而在大多数发达国家则达到了65.在2005年，介于55-64岁的人群的就业率只有37.8%，同比于英国的56.8%和德国的44.9%。主要原因是由于80年代的高失业率，政府鼓励提前退休。从而老龄化意味着低生产力这一观念变得根深蒂固，Experconnect的创始人Caroline Young说到。

Now companies are worried about losing their most skilled workers, especially as the baby-boom generation nears retirement. Areva, a nuclear-power group, recently launched a scheme to address the needs of older employees, and plans to use about 100 retired people a year through Experconnect. Because nuclear power was unpopular for decades, Areva stopped training engineers, so that much of its
expertise lies with its oldest staff. Now it is taking much more interest in them. “We have to bring about a revolution in opinion,” says Jean Cassingena, its human-resources strategist.

现今，许多公司都担心高技术工人的流失问题，尤其是面临”生育高峰”的那代人即将退休。一个名为Areva的核能公司，最近发起了一项解决老龄工人短缺的计划，并打算通过Experconnect启用大约100位退休人员。由于近十年来，核能技术不再流行。Areva已经停止培养新的工程师，所以大多数专业技术都掌握在老员工手中。因此现在公司对老员工们产生了更大的兴趣。”我们的观念亟待改变”Jean Cassingena，这家公司人力资源部分析师说到

Unlike other recruitment agencies, Experconnect keeps its workers on its own books, so they can carry on drawing their pensions. They tend to work part-time on one-off projects. Engineers and people with high levels of technical skill are most in demand in France, says Ms Young, as younger people increasingly choose to go into fields such as marketing. Thales, a defence and aerospace firm, is using a former radar
expert, for instance, and Louis Berger France, an engineering firm, often uses retired engineers to manage big infrastructure projects.

与其他职业中介不同的是，Experconnect容许他的工人们有自己的小算盘，他们可以着手利用他们的退休金。他们倾向于一次性的兼职工作。在法国，工程师和其他高技术工种的需求都非常大，Young女士说到，因为年轻的一代更喜欢市场营销一类的工作。比如Thales 这类航空防卫公司以及Louis Berger这样的工程公司，都经常雇佣退休的工程师去操作大的制造项目

Softer industries also make use of Experconnect. Danone, a food firm, hires people for one-off management roles. “Older people have seen it all and they are level-headed,” says Thomas Kunz, its head of beverages. The beauty industry is short of toxicologists to determine whether new lotions are safe, and one firm has just taken on a 75-year-old. Two famous French luxury-goods companies plan to use retired workers in their handbag divisions. One wants to safeguard its knowledge of fine leathers and sewing; the other wants to apply expertise from the aerospace industry to make new kinds of materials for handbags.

轻工业同样得力于Experconnect。一个名为Danone的食品公司就雇佣了这样的管理人才。”年长的人着眼大局并且头脑清醒，Thomas Kunz，这家公司的饮料主管说到。同样，美容产业也缺少毒物学家去确定新的洗液的安全性，基于这个原因，一家公司不得不采用了一位75岁的雇员。法国两家著名的奢侈品公司计划在关于手提包的不同领域采用退休人员。一个打算保证皮革的优质性以及缝制工艺。另一个打算利用航空业的专业知识来开发制作手提包的新型材料

Despite an impressive handful of high-profile clients, Experconnect has found it difficult to convince French companies that older workers can be valuable. It has 2,700 retired people on its books, and has so far placed just 50 of them on “missions”. Old prejudices, as they say, die hard.

尽管一些顾客有着鲜明的立场，Experconnect发现，想说服法国公司老龄工人是有价值的，仍然是件难事。这家公司已经有2700名在册的退休人员。目前为止，仅有50人被授予任务。正如他们所说的，”成见难改啊！”

译者：tipsun   http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=12801&pid=80833&page=1&extra=#pid80833