At the same time, we advise caution against rendering a certain diagnosis in the absence of sufficient, confirmatory clinical information. With the data provided in their 2006 report, the clear confidence Harber et al. displayed appears to us to be unwarranted.”
“Introduction In most of the 30 countries FK506 mouse joint in OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), the mean age of workers increases as a result of demographic and social trends (Keese et al. 2006).

Birth cohorts since the 1960s are smaller than previous ones, and nowadays a large proportion of the youngest age group (15–25 years) in the labour force is still in education. As an additional effect of these trends, the number of available workers will diminish in the next decades. Estimations in the Netherlands for 2025, compared to 2008, show that the number of persons

available for work will decrease by 4.1% (around 340,000 employees) (http://​www.​statline.​nl). Comparable trends are predicted for other Western countries. Participation of a larger part of the people who potentially are able to work is necessary to prevent scarcity on the labour market. The European Council in Lisbon (in 2000) and Stockholm (in 2001) have set ambitious targets to be reached by 2010: to increase the general employment rate PCI-32765 supplier to 70% and the employment rate of older workers (55 and older) to 50% (Hutsebaut 2005). Encouraged by these targets and urged by the predicted scarcity in the labour market, many governments have enacted, among others,

measures to discourage Epothilone B (EPO906, Patupilone) early retirement, in order to increase labour force participation (Hutsebaut 2005). In the Netherlands, these measures are rather successful: over the past 15 years, the participation of older workers (aged between 55 and 64) has increased from the all-time low of 24% in 1993 (Wilthagen 2004) to 47% in 2008 (Janssen and Souren 2009). Retirement at a more advanced age will contribute to the trend that a larger number of employees will be of 55 up to 65 years. For a good HRM and occupational health policy it is important to get a better picture of how people in this age group perceive their work and to evaluate what contributes to their job satisfaction, compared to employees in younger age groups. The latter is also important because low job satisfaction is one of the factors that affect the intention to leave (Irvine and Evans 1995; Karatepe 2007; McCarthy 2007) and to early retirement (Sibbald et al. 2003). Moreover, Faragher et. al. (2005) concluded from a meta-analysis that job satisfaction influences the health and well-being of workers. This article addresses employees’ work characteristics, and the relationships between work characteristics and job satisfaction.