Age was the reason given by the chair of the board of Sweden’s state-owned travel company SJ in August this year for why it was necessary to change the CEO.
The CEO was born in 1962 and the chair in 1961.
The statement fuelled a long-running debate about what role age plays when trying to find a new job in midlife – even though SJ’s chair later backtracked and apologised for the remark.
Read this story in Swedish on Arbeidsliv i Norden
74,095 people over 55 seeking jobs
In September 2025, 74,095 people aged 55 and over were registered as jobseekers with the Swedish Public Employment Office. This represents just over 20 per cent of the total 363,658 who registered that month.
Sweden has had an Anti-Discrimination Act since 2008. Its purpose is to combat discrimination and in other ways promote equal rights and opportunities regardless of gender, transgender identity or expression, ethnic origin, religion or other belief, disability, sexual orientation or age.
Jonas Nordling is among those who have helped fuel this debate – the author of the book on age anxiety. It took him two years and countless job applications – which at best resulted in a “Thank you, but we have decided to move forward with other candidates” – before he finally found employment.
“I could see it as a personal failure, and that is also what it felt like. But I chose to write a book because I realised that I was not alone in having this problem.
“It made me curious. What is behind the unwritten laws that say older people’s skills and experiences are not attractive to employers? I wanted to find out more about this,” he tells the Nordic Labour Journal.
Ageism can affect both younger and older people. It is characterised by:
- Stereotypes – how we think
- Prejudices – how we feel
- Discrimination – how we act
This article will focus on the type of ageism that often affects jobseekers who are what is known as “older”, i.e. middle-aged and above.
Jonas Nordling highlights different perspectives on ageism in his book. What is important, he says, is to keep in mind the two aspects that characterise ageism in Sweden.
“On the one hand, we have people with permanent jobs who try unsuccessfully to change jobs, and on the other, those who are unemployed and unable to enter the labour market because employers are not interested in them due to their age.”
Better the older we get
“Better the older we get” – that is the conclusion in Feelgood’s 2025 Work Health Report – “The paradox of attractive labour – prejudices and facts about the 50+ workforce”. Feelgood is a Swedish occupational health and wellbeing company helping employers promote healthier workplaces.
The report highlights facts that challenge the common perception of older people in working life.
The press release says:
“Studies show that age discrimination during recruitment does occur in the Swedish labour market, and older people who lose their jobs often end up in long-term unemployment.
“Put simply, things get better the older we get, so older employees should be in demand rather than excluded. The paradox also lies in the fact that we are all expected to work longer, alongside the highly relevant issue of securing sufficient skills and competence.
“We also do not want to miss out on valuable synergy effects between different generations in the workplace.”
To understand what Feelgood in the report calls “persistent prejudices that risk standing in the way of much-needed labour,” the company seeks answers to questions such as:
- What is the reason behind the age discrimination?
- What does it mean for people, companies and society?
- What can we do about it?
And yet…
Feelgood has published annual working environment reports since 2015, except during the pandemic years.
“We have a working group that handles the reports. Together, we discuss different hypotheses about what may have changed in people’s health and what trends we’re seeing among our clients.
“After that, we start digging into the statistics to see whether the hypotheses hold up,” Åsa Rex Nygård, Feelgood’s marketing and communications director, tells the Nordic Labour Journal.
Feelgood chose ageism as the theme for this year’s report because they saw how the debate around the issue had grown ever bigger, she explains.
“Everyone you talk to say ageism is wrong, but it continues to be an issue. Employers don’t see age as a unique selling point, even though it often is.
“When you look at data related to working life, Sweden is unusually age-focused – in fact, the worst in the Nordic region. And since we have relevant data, we wanted to contribute.”
The data available to Feelgood is based on statistics from HALU, a health, work environment and lifestyle survey.
HALU is a strategic health tool used to map entire workplaces and organisations from the individual level. It is a service provided by Feelgood to companies and organisations that want a clear picture of how employees experience their work, life situation and health.
Through HALU, Feelgood also gains access to anonymised responses from the employees who have taken part.
Billions in losses
Jeanette Hedberg, head of negotiations at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions’ (SKR) department for employer policy, writes about the socio-economic aspect of ageism on their website.
She says that in two out of three Swedish municipalities, the number of people of working age is decreasing, and that involuntary retirement – as more unemployed people over 60 leave the labour market – represents a cost to society estimated at 11.4 billion Swedish kronor (€1bn) per year.
That is according to figures from SPP, a company within the Nordic financial group Storebrand.
SKR is Sweden’s largest employer and has collective agreements with nearly 1.2 million employees.
Together with trade unions, they have developed collective agreements that “support a longer working life and address the needs of senior employees, so that more people are able and willing to work for longer,” Hedberg continues.
Jeanette Hedberg is head of negotiations at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions’ (SKR) department for employer policy. (Photo: SKR)
In an email, she tells the Nordic Labour Journal about the measures SKR has implemented in recent years to reduce ageism.
“For example, we have introduced higher pension contributions, contributions throughout people’s entire working life, and later withdrawals.
“We are working towards pensions being taken out for life, with a strong focus on the consumer perspective, ensuring people get the most out of what they put into the pension system.
“We believe in encouraging, not forcing, our employees to remain in working life.”
If you want to tackle people’s views of older people in the labour market, Jeanette Hedberg believes the most important thing you can do is changing attitudes.
“We have to abandon the 65-year norm among both employers and employees. A survey from the University of Gothenburg shows that many 70-year-olds are in better health today than 50-year-olds were in the 1970s, and this includes cognitive capacities.
“That means the senior labour force is an important resource that we really need to recruit and retain.”
Proposal
Like other countries, Sweden has declining birth rates and falling immigration numbers as well as labour shortages in several sectors. This is why Jonas Nordling is calling for effective action from policymakers.
“Public authorities have the opportunity to fight ageism just like major employers can. Look at how women in the labour market were viewed in the 1950s – things have changed. Today, female managers are a given in Sweden.
“The same journey has to be had when it comes to older workers. And we also need to stop seeing ‘job hoppers’ as something negative. In fact, we should have more of them.”
Another proposal from Jonas Nordling to increase mobility in the labour market is to reduce employers’ social security contributions for older workers.
“Right now, they are being overlooked because that is how the wage model works.
“Employer contributions have indeed been abolished for those aged 67 and over, but it should also be possible to have different levels of employer contributions for different age groups to make older workers more attractive in the labour market,” he says.
Higher retirement age
The Swedish parliament has decided that there should be no formal retirement age. From 2026, the term “retirement age” will be replaced with the so-called “target age”, according to the Swedish Pensions Agency.
The agency explains the target age as “a retirement age that follows the development of life expectancy in order to maintain pension levels as life expectancy increases”.
The agency also says that “there is no retirement age in Sweden. You decide, based on existing rules, when you start drawing your pension.”
“The equation doesn’t add up. While we are expected to work longer in Sweden, employers are rejecting older workers,” says Jonas Nordling.
“Now, we are increasing the retirement age for the first time since the 1930s, effectively going back in time. If change is to happen, it has to be fundamental, with proper reforms of the pension system. But that is a whole book in itself.”
The future labour market
While the age of retirement increases in Sweden and in other countries, there is ongoing research on how to create a sustainable and inclusive working life.
Nordforsk hosts the project Sustainable working-life for ageing populations in the Nordic-Baltic region.
The project is based on the fact that people are growing older and that society needs them to stay in work for longer. It explores:
1) how our societies can adjust to rapid social, demographic and technological change
2) how to ensure an inclusive, competent and sustainable future workforce, with working environments that safeguard health, wellbeing and a good work-life balance in an era of hybrid work, flexible contracts, new employment models and longer careers
3) how changes in working life affect income trajectories for men and women
The project is set to conclude in January 2026, with the intention of sharing its findings internationally. Ageism is a world-wide phenomenon, and its negative consequences is being highlighted globally.
The ticking bomb
Jonas Nordling highlights the consequences of persistent ageism.
“We have older people who want to change jobs but can’t, because employers reject their applications. They risk dissatisfaction and poor health.
“Then we have jobseekers who can’t find work. Once their unemployment benefits run out, their only option is to draw on their own pension to survive.
“If they then have not had a high-earning job, their pension will be low for the rest of their lives, leaving them as poor pensioners.
This means many individual tragic cases are in the danger zone and if we don’t sort this out, we risk that this ticking bomb goes off with everything that entails,” says Jonas Nordling.
The Nordic Labour Journal approached Johan Britz, a Swedish MP from the Liberal Party who has been the Minister for Employment since June this year, to ask about the government’s efforts to combat ageism.
He responded in writing via his press spokesperson:
“I believe it is important that we discuss the issue of ageism more and more. Employers who reject a qualified candidate based on their age need to change their behaviour.
“It is a myth that older people find it more difficult to learn new things, are less flexible and lack drive. It is time to abandon our obsession with age.”
“This spring, the Ministry of Employment brought together experts from academia and public authorities in a labour market policy council to discuss ageism and how we can work towards having more people contribute to working life for longer.
“Sweden has the highest employment level among people aged 55 and over in the EU, but those who lose their job find it hard to find another one. This is untapped potential – bad for Sweden and harmful to the individual.
“Shortly after this government took office, it increased the retirement age for public agency directors to 69.
“Beyond that, the government is pursuing broad measures to strengthen older people’s position in the labour market, such as increased earned income tax credits for seniors, improved access to further training and a higher limit for the right to remain in employment.
“That said, I believe we will have look at more ways to address the problem of ageism in the labour market. The government is happy to help, and we also expeSct employers and trade unions to do the same.
“We are continuously monitoring developments in other Nordic countries.”
