Promoting Better Career Choices for Longer Working Lives:

Stepping up not stepping out, 11 March 2024

On Monday 11 March 2024 the OECD organised an event to Launch the report “Promoting Better Career Choices for Longer Working Lives: Stepping up not stepping out”. 

Rising longevity alongside technological and cultural change are some of the forces disrupting traditional career paths, resulting in more fluid and diversified career trajectories. To benefit from increased longevity, workers will increasingly have to consider job mobility at middle and older ages, changing jobs or careers more frequently than in the past. Making successful career transitions, however, tends to be more difficult for workers at older ages due to health issues, unfamiliarity with relevant technology or a lack of recent job search experience. This report presents evidence on recent trends in career mobility and the consequences for individual workers in terms of pay and other job characteristics. It identifies key employer and public policies that can help facilitate career mobility that results in better employment choices at older ages.

The event was organized into several panels and fireside chats featuring high-level experts from the public sector, private sector, academia, and social partners (Speakers included the Rt Hon Mel Stride, Katharine Abraham, Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, Julia Randell Khan, Helen Tupper, Richard Alderson, Fabrice Segui, Sibylle Le Maire, Laurent Bataille and the Japanese and Austrian ambassadors to the OECD). The succesful sessions reflected the chapters in the Report, including insights on why mobility is important at older ages, the barriers that workers face when making career changes, and initiatives that individuals, employers and governments can take to smooth job transitions. Please see agenda below.

  

AGENDA

(click here to dowload the programme)

9.00-9.30      COFFEE
9.30-9.35	WELCOME REMARKS BY MODERATOR Moderator: Susannah Streeter, Global Commentator, Former BBC Anchor
9.35-10.00	OPENING SPEECH Mathias Cormann, OECD Secretary-General Debra Whitman, AARP Executive Vice President and Chief Public Policy Officer
10.00-10:40	PANEL DISCUSSION: WHY MOBILITY IS THE KEY TO LONGEVITY Mark Pearson, Deputy Director, Directorate Employment, Labour and Social Affairs, OECD Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, CEO of gender and generational consultancy, 20-first, Speaker & Author on life’s 4-quarters Katharine Abraham, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland Rt Hon. Mel Stride, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, UK
10.40-10:45	AUDIENCE Q&A
10:45-11:15	FIRESIDE CHAT: WHY IS CAREER CHANGE SO HARD? Richard Alderson, Founder of Careershifters Helen Tupper, Co-founder of Amazing If, Co-author of The Squiggly Career and You Coach You Moderated by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox
11.15-11:35     COFFEE BREAK
11:35-12:15	PANEL DISCUSSION: WHAT GOVERNMENTS ARE DOING TO MAKE WORKERS LONGEVITY READY Ambassador Jun Shimmi,Japanese Ambassador to the OECD Ambassador Gerhard Jandl, Ambassador, Permanent Representative to the of Austria to the OECD Ms Palma D’Ambrosio, Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Delegation of Italy, Paris Julia Randell-Khan, Consulting fellow at Stanford Center on Longevity, Senior fellow at Co-generate and Co-founder, The Purpose Xchange
12:15-12:55	PANEL DISCUSSION: HOW COMPANIES CAN LEAD THE WAY Fabrice Segui, CEO, BNP Paribas Portugal Sibylle Le Maire, Founder of Club Landoy and ViveS, Executive Director of Bayard Laurent Bataille, President of Schneider Electric France
13:00	CONFERENCE ENDS