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The Muhanna Foundation is hosting its 16th annual regional conference in December which will study “The Demographic Ageing under the Shadow of Economic Crisis: Employment-Human Resources-Retirement”.
“For the first time in history, it is expected that by the year 2045 there will be more people over the age of 65 relative to people under the age of 15,” explained conference chairman George Psaras, adding that “the population over 65 is expected to triple while persons over 80 are expected to be the most rapidly growing group.”
“Population ageing constitutes a positive development, since we live longer. However, challenges are created. The labour force is decreasing and ageing, creating the imperative need for policies of employment that would promote its efficient use and the training of the workforce. The conference will deal with the effect in the economy, the enterprises, the labour and pension costs,” Psaras said.
The development of the recent economic crisis will also be discussed and how this is expected to affect the labour force today and in the future. In particular, the demographic challenges and employment policies in the EU and Cyprus will be examined as well as the retirement policies for encouraging and prolonging working life and the effect of the labour cost increase in the competitiveness of the economy.
Leading international companies have been invited to the conference to present and share good practices they adopted for improving the ability and encouraging workers to remain in employment. These constitute examples of corporate social responsibility for the management of ageing and the development of relevant programs.
The conference will be held under the auspices of Labour and Social Insurance Minsiter Soteroulla Charalambous, while speakers have also been invited from the International Labour Organisation, University of Warwick, University of Berlin (SRH), PricewaterhouseCoopers, i.e. Muhanna & co, Marfin CLR, Laiki CypriaLife, the European Centre (UN), Metro Group Germany and Xerox Netherlands.
The conference is being organised in collaboration with i.e. Muhanna & co and PricewaterhouseCoopers, sponsored by Marfin CLR and Laiki Cyprialife and supported by the Employers and Industrialists Federation (OEV) and the Federation of Workers in Cyprus.
