Malta Chamber and GWU join forces for active ageing, intergenerational knowledge transfer

Malta’s main business representative body and the country’s largest union have joined forces to foster and nurture active ageing. The pair also agreed on an intergenerational workforce approach to ensure healthy, safe, and productive working environments that fully enable workers to keep working into older age, and to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and experience from generation to generation.

A framework agreement signed by the two social partners pays heed to the need for Maltese labour market policies to ensure valuable human resources and experience are retained for as long as possible.

Good practices along such lines will be shared with the public digitally in due course.

Malta Chamber President Marisa Xuereb explains, how, “Active ageing and intergenerational approach policies can be part of the solution to address labour market challenges. The contribution of senior professionals and workers is key to the success of our businesses and the economy.”

Xuereb said that The Malta Chamber and the GWU identified legal anomalies in the fiscal treatment of workers that retire at a certain age which go against the spirit of active ageing and are committed to address these issues jointly with the government.

According to GWU Secretary General Josef Bugeja, “The GWU supports all workers, including those who decide to continue working after reaching their retirement age. We believe that employees with long years of experience have a lot to offer to their organisations’ culture and the rest of the team. It is important to keep promoting active ageing as these employees have a lot to offer.

“The intergenerational approach brings the best mixture among employees because academic knowledge and experience are the best compositions to favour businesses. This agreement is putting us in a better position to keep supporting and protecting active ageing collectively. Working hand-in-hand with The Malta Chamber is a good step in the right direction to reach our aims together. This is the second autonomies framework agreement signed together with the Malta Chamber.”

The agreement was signed by Marisa Xuereb and Dr Marthese Portelli as respective President and CEO of The Malta Chamber, and by GWU President Victor Carachi and Secretary General Josef Bugeja.