Austria performs well in overall employment and in female employment. In both cases, Austria is in line with the European Employment Objectives outlined in the European Employment Strategy and the Lisbon Agenda. However, Austria has to meet the employment rate of older people set out in the Lisbon Agenda. Thus, the Territorial Employment Pacts (TEPs) facilitate various initiatives on national and regional level to bring older unemployed in employment, to keep older workers in employement and thereby raise the employment rate.
On the regional level the TEPs jointly develop, co-ordinate and implement different measures for older unemployed persons and employees. For example, in Lower Austria the labour foundation “jobkonkret 45+” is a good practice model for the organization of further training for older unemployed. In Salzburg a special coach (“Älteren-Coach”) supports elderly unemployed in re-integration and Styria funds measures of raising awareness in small and medium sized enterprises concerning the same target group. The TEPs aim to raise the employment of elderly persons through stronger linkages between different policies, raising stakeholder awareness, further development of new instruments for further training of mature workers and instruments for integration into the labour market.
On the federal level all TEPs together with non profit organizations worked in the Development Partnership (DP) TEP_EQUAL_Elderly in 2005-2007 (the activities in TEP_EQUAL_Elderly were supported and funded within the European Community Initiative EQUAL co-financed by the Austrian Ministry of Economics and Labour). The DP worked at the interface between small and medium sized companies on the one hand, and employees and unemployed persons on the other. The DP implemented measures on three different levels - see graphic TEP_EQUAL: "Elderly plans". On the TEP-project level the new labour market instrument “elderly plan” was implemented in three provinces. The results were transferred to the working programmes of the TEPs at the TEP-programme level. Experience was shared between all TEPs on the federal TEP-network level. Additionally, the results of the DP provided a basis for the TEP „Green paper on Elderly" (in German language only) containing a TEP strategy for elder people at the labour market.
The information exchange between the TEPs on the federal level as well as the mainstreaming of measures and instruments throughout the provinces adds value and leverage to the federal co-operation between all TEPs.
Additional information in German is available at TEPs & Ältere.