Promoting Better Career Mobility for Longer Working Lives in Belgium

Executive summary

The Belgian population is ageing, with the old-age dependency ratio projected to increase to 48.7 by 2060, up from 35.7 in 2023. Simultaneously, the green and digital transformations are changing labour markets, while pressing labour shortages enhance the need for mobilising untapped labour potential and retaining qualified workers. Against this background, increasing the employment of older workers can boost productivity and growth. Despite recent improvements, Belgium continues to lag behind other countries, with an employment rate of 59.4% for older workers in 2024 compared with an OECD average of 64.6%.

Increased job mobility in the mid-to-late career is crucial for improving employment outcomes at older ages, and for productivity, by enabling better job matches and working conditions. Voluntary, high-quality job transitions – both within and across firms – allow mid-to-late career workers to adjust their careers in line with evolving health and skills needs. However, overall job mobility is low in Belgium (6.6%), compared with both the European OECD average (9.9%) and top performing countries such as Sweden (23.8%) or the United Kingdom (14.8%). In addition, mobility decreases with age, dropping from higher rates at ages 20‑29 (18.2%) and 30‑39 (10.5%) to 6.9% in the age group 40‑49 and only 4% at 50‑59. When older workers do move, transitions are more often involuntary, which can increase the risk of job loss or premature labour market exit. Among Belgian workers aged 45‑54, only 41.2% of job moves are voluntary.

Removing barriers to high-quality job mobility requires action across many areas. The Belgian policy landscape has several strengths, including a strong tradition of social partnership, well-functioning Public Employment Services and substantial institutional support for both training and healthy workplaces. Nevertheless, many challenges remain. These include structural disincentives to mobility at older ages; low engagement in training or career guidance among older workers; limited policy monitoring and evaluation; and institutional complexity, compounded by policy layering across levels of governance.

Improving incentives for labour market participation and mobility at older ages

Several structural barriers limit job mobility for older workers in Belgium. Employment protection legislation is strict with strong tenure‑based differentiations, limiting mobility particularly for long-tenured workers. In white collar-jobs, barriers to mobility are reinforced by seniority wages, which discourage hiring or retaining older workers. Simultaneously, age discrimination is a major barrier for mid-to-late career workers wanting to move jobs. Belgium is already undertaking reforms to reduce differences in employment protection based on tenure by decreasing notice periods for long-tenured workers.

Structural incentives also shape premature labour market exit, which is common in Belgium. In 2024, the effective retirement age was 3.3 years below the OECD average for men, and 1.8 for women. Ongoing reforms to introduce actuarially neutral pension bonuses and penalties could incentivise longer labour market participation. However, planned exemptions for workers with long careers would distort incentives and disadvantage groups without long contribution histories. Moreover, Belgium is introducing promising reforms to cap the previously unlimited duration of unemployment benefit receipt. This could strengthen work incentives for older workers, though effects on vulnerable labour market groups should be monitored.

Investing in workplace age management for longer and healthier working lives

Age‑friendly workplaces that offer good working conditions and limit job strain can support employment as workers age. These practices are especially important in Belgium, where more than 500 000 individuals are in long-term sickness absence, among whom around 244 000 aged 55‑64. Several initiatives to support workplace age management exist, including promising collective approaches like the Demography Funds.

Investment in healthy workplaces is crucial. Job strain affects 15.1% of Belgian employees aged 30‑54 and 13.6% at 55‑64, above European OECD averages (10% and 7.2%). Belgium has a strong occupational safety and health framework, supported by specialised prevention services. However, implementation is uneven, with small firms requiring targeted support. Enabling return to work after illness is also key. Despite ongoing reforms, intervention takes place too late during absence and support services lack capacity.

Flexible work helps balance health or family needs with employment. Various measures support flexibility in Belgium. “Time credit” enables reduced hours, including in the late career, but evidence, while limited, suggests it may not extend participation. Flexi-jobs, tax-advantaged low-hours contracts, have also grown. While attractive to pensioners, they may reduce job quality and increase skills mismatch for other workers.

Boosting training and career guidance to encourage high-quality transitions

Access to training enables high-quality job transitions at all ages. Belgium invests substantially in training, though funding has recently been reduced in some regions. Training participation is comparatively low and declines with age, from 43.8% at 45‑54 to 28.8% at 55‑64. While educational leave and financial incentives support participation, mid-to-late career workers are less likely to benefit from these instruments. In addition, structural fragmentation and complexity in adult learning limit engagement of older workers.

Career guidance can increase motivation to participate in training and support career planning. Guidance services exist in all regions but largely focus on the non-employed in Wallonia and Brussels. Social partners also play a role through sectoral training funds financed by employer contributions. There are examples of sectoral funds supporting career orientation, but inter-sectoral co‑operation remains limited.

Key recommendations

• Improve work incentives, labour demand and incentives for mobility for mid-to-late career workers. This includes aligning wages to productivity rather than seniority in white‑collar jobs and supporting recent reforms to unemployment insurance with adequate active labour market measures. Actuarially neutral pension bonuses and penalties should also be introduced for all workers.

• Invest further in age‑friendly working environments by both building on initiatives led by social partners and developing public employer support and services on age management practices.

• Strengthen workplace health prevention through increased labour inspection capacity, improving financial incentives for SMEs, and stronger follow-up by specialised prevention services to maintain productivity and health. At the same time, improve employer incentives to invest in health prevention and return to work by extending employer contributions to sickness benefits.

• Enable access to flexible work while evaluating effects of schemes on worker retention and career progression. Better target end-of-career time credit whilst limiting flexi-jobs to pensioners only.

• Increase participation in training among older workers by improving training design and better targeting of incentives. Furthermore, consider creating a one‑stop shop platform to reduce complexity and inequalities in access. Invest in career guidance for all ages, also by promoting sectoral social partners initiatives to provide career orientation and support inter-sectoral mobility.