ITALY - Workers over 50 years got 80% of the 225,000 jobs available in 2003 while the amount of pension-age workers who decided not to retire was up 5.2%.

The findings come in a report by the National Council for Economy and Labour, CNEL. Its “Report on the Labour Market in 2003”, the growth in the rate of over 60 workers is presented as the most significant in 2003 in relative terms.

The record of employment rate in absolute terms, however, belongs to workers in their fifties.

“There has been a consistent increase in the employment rate in the age group 50 to 54 and 55 to 59,” the report states. On the other hand, the employment rate among the 65 to 69 age group is decreasing.

“Data confirms that on the labour market an increase in the rate of middle-aged workers or workers close to pension age is taking place, what the media has called ‘the charge of the 50-year-olds’, and this is positive data,” states the report.

This data mirrors a growing trend, which has seen the employment rate of over-35 olds grow from 62.1% to 65.1% between 1997 and 2003.

Between October 2002 and 2003 the number of women workers between 55 to 64 has increased from 558,000 to 675,000, while men workers of the same age group has gone up from 1,353,000 to 1,442,000, the report also says.

In the meantime the National Institute of Social Security for the private sector, Inps, has released new data on the 32.7% tax-free bonus, one of the measures of the pension reform implemented in October to encourage workers to keep their job longer.

Inps says that the number of workers eligible for pensions, 57 years of age and 35 of contributions until 2008, who decided to work on so far amounts to 23,867.

The figures have been received by the Italian press as a sign that Inps’ estimate of 25,000 applications for the bonus by the end 2004 is realistic.