Thirteen percent of retirees in Germany continued to work in the first six months after receiving their first old-age pension, which was in line with the EU average of 13 percent, according to the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) based on the results of a supplementary survey of the EU Labour Force Survey 2023.
While six percent of retirees continued to work without changes, seven percent worked with changes, such as a reduced working hours or a job change, after receiving their pension. The majority (55 percent) of retirees stopped working after receiving their pension. One-third (33 percent) of retirees had not worked for various reasons, such as early retirement, illness, or unemployment, even before receiving their first old-age pension.
Whether people continued to work or stopped working after receiving their pension differed significantly across the EU. A possible reason for this could be the different pension systems in the individual EU countries. In particular, in the Baltic countries, retirees continued to work after receiving their pension, according to the statisticians. In Estonia (55 percent), as well as in Latvia and Lithuania (44 percent each), a particularly high proportion of people were still employed even after receiving their pension. In contrast, a particularly large proportion of retirees in Slovenia and Romania (84 percent each) and Bulgaria (79 percent) stopped working completely at the start of their pension.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, 13 percent of retirees in the EU continued to work after receiving their first old-age pension, with seven percent doing so without changes, six percent continuing to work but changing their working conditions and almost two-thirds (65 percent) stopping work altogether, while 22 percent had not worked previously.