As life expectancy in the EU increases people face lengthy periods of retirement, with proportionally less pension provision, unless they stay economically active for longer. Longer working lives raises key challenges for employers and for prospective older workers alike.

“Guidance and counselling is crucial for longer and more satisfying careers by supporting ageing people in terms of learning, career development and employability”. 2011, CEDEFOP

The concepts and practices of career counselling are today transforming from the traditional way of comparing working life and job requirements to an individuals’ skills and dispositions, towards a focus on developing and enhancing the individual’s relationship within working life as a whole and in the context of their life course.

Approaches to career management in organisations need to be based on ‘career growth pathways’ rather than traditional hierarchical progression, and to give employees the opportunity for a breadth of diverse experiences that help to maximise their employability going forward.

The SASSI-Working On Project addresses the challenge of 'working on' by developing and testing age-sensitive and ‘working-life’ approaches to career review and guidance in order to meet the needs of older people (aged 50+) who have to, or want to, keep ‘Working On’ into their 60s, 70s+. The project partners will develop an innovative training programme for trainers and careers advisers, with the aim of extending and enhancing access to more age-sensitive careers advice, skills updating and work experience opportunities for older people.

The partnership is led by Apricot, United Kingdom, and has experienced C-VET providers and HR consultancies from Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Portugal and Belgium as project partners.