By Liz Alderman
Source: The New York Times
During her 38-year career as a sales and marketing manager, Christine Jagueneau rarely thought about retirement. But when her job at a French industrial company was eliminated just before her 59th birthday last February, the idea of tapping her pension took on unexpected urgency.
Despite nearly a dozen job interviews, she said, employers have suggested that she’s too old to be hired. She has just enough savings to coast to France’s current retirement age of 62. But a government plan unveiled last week that would make the French work longer, to age 64, risks undermining her financial security, along with that of millions of older job seekers who have been effectively shut out of France’s labor market.
“We’re being told to work more,” said Ms. Jagueneau, who is eager to work and feels dismayed to be collecting unemployment for the first time in her life. “But it’s almost impossible for older people to get jobs, because companies in France won’t hire them.”