Work situation evaluation as a prerequisite for productive aging of engineers and innovators

Engineers and innovators developing new products are playing an important role in highly industrialized nations. The purpose of the study was to understand special problems of aging that arise in German companies in the small segment of the work force consisting of engineers and innovators working in research and development. As the output of the educational system is very small, the shortage of engineers is dramatic, thus there is a need for older engineers to stay longer in the work force. Therefore, the variety of tasks, the activities across their domains and their attitudes towards organization were examined, mainly via a questionnaire, thus giving findings for organizational layout. 37 engineers were questioned in 25 companies. The group of engineers and innovators can be viewed as a predecessor of what can happen in small segments of the labour market with very skilled employees working under high mental demand.