Configuración y significación de los trabajadores de edad : notas introductorias

This paper attempts at providing an answer to questions that raise when considering the concept of older worker, with an introductory aim to the other papers published in this monograph. In the first place the aspects of an older -especially vulnerable- worker's labour relation's life cycle, or, those more propitious for discrimination are highlighted. Secondly, it is observed that these older workers are also especially fragile when they are unemployed, since they are many -more and more- and unemployment is frequently a longer duration situation. This can lead to contributory unemployment benefits consumption without having obtained a new job, all this shortly before -or coinciding- with their retirement. Employment of older workers is not currently a complacent reality, and the unemployment they suffer is especially worrisome. The reform of regulations on retirement (2013), delaying the retirement age, has not been positive to solve the problems affecting older workers and older unemployed; on the contrary, it even encourages poverty.