Our objectives were to enhance the employability and later-life career opportunities of older adults (aged 55+) by: • developing and piloting updating (CPD) opportunities for C-VET professionals in providing age-sensitive careers guidance and counselling for older career changers, including with practical resources: a Training Manual on later-life career orientation, a Handbook to support mobility for later-life career development , digital tools and a Guide to developing ‘Olderpreneurs’ • developing innovative non-formal learning approaches to reskilling older people for alternative employment options such as social enterprise, self-employment and digital enterprise • developing tools and products that support the delivery of Later-Life Career counselling • championing short-term mobility secondments & volunteering learning experiences including work experiences in other countries in order to improve intercultural understanding and language skills • sustaining and exploiting the outputs of the forerunner Erasmus+ SASSI projects (2015 and 2018).
Europe’s future economic competitiveness and prosperity depends crucially on its ability to fully utilise its labour resources including through the extension of employment periods over the life course. In this project we sought to respond directly to a) the challenges outlined in “The Missing Entrepreneurs” 2019 (OECD) which identifies seniors (aged 50+) as the largest group of self-employed people in the EU at 48% (OECD 2018) with 43% of the workforce aged 65-74 self-employed. It concedes that “policy can do more to raise awareness about the potential of entrepreneurship among older workers and encourage more senior entrepreneurs to use their experience to support other entrepreneurs” and b) as stated in Coordinating Guidance and Validation (CEDEFOP 2019) “the need for effective career guidance for older people is greater than ever” . Our project has put policy into practice by addressing the need for longer working lives, for encouraging Senior Entrepreneurship and for enhancing Career Guidance and Counselling for older people within the context of Continuing Vocational Education and Training (C-VET).