BERLIN, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Skilled workers in Germany are more likely to continue to work after reaching retirement age than low skilled workers, German media reported on Monday.
One of the reasons for skilled workers to continue to work in their retirement would be the shortage of skilled labor since qualified personnel was "currently difficult to replace," commented researcher Christian Westermeier on the latest study of the German Institute for Employment Research (IAB).
People in Germany, who have been receiving a low wage when they are around 55 years old, would also be working "significantly" more frequently after turning 65, the statutory retirement age in Germany, the study showed.
The number of working pensioners in Germany increased from around 530,000 in 2000 to about 1.5 million in 2018, the government told the German press agency (dpa) on Monday.
Besides financial factors, there were also "immaterial reasons such as joy at work and contact with other people," the dpa reported.
The IAB study found that people who received a low wage at the age of 55 would mostly stay with the same employer when continuing to work after retirement.
"This can also be explained by the fact that these persons were usually only marginally employed during the early retirement phase and that mini-jobs can easily be continued alongside an old-age pension for tax and pension reasons," Westermeier noted.
More than half of the pension payments in Germany were below 900 euros (999 U.S. dollars) per month, according to a government response to an inquiry by Germany's Left party in July.
However, the government pointed out "that the amount of an old-age pension in the statutory pension insurance does not in principle allow conclusions to be drawn about the neediness of the basic provision in old age," as possible additional sources of income and the concrete household situation would have been taken into account.
