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Employability and its components have received a lot of attention from scholars and practitioners. However, little is known about the interrelations between these different components of employability and how employees progress within their employability trajectories. Therefore, a model of such progression was constructed and tested using Van der Heijde and Van der Heijden’s (2006) employability measurement instrument. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The propositions were tested empirically by applying a Rasch model using a sample of 167 Austrian business consultants.

The findings lend some support for the hypothesized progression model of employability. Specifically, the items measuring occupational expertise are largely located in the group of items that were relatively likely to be endorsed. Also, the items of personal flexibility and anticipation and optimization were, in general, less likely to be endorsed than the items of occupational expertise.

The major thrust of this paper is a theoretical one. However, the empirical demonstration tentatively supports the proposed model, which implies that further, more robust longitudinal research in this direction may be a worthwhile endeavor.

By understanding which competences are important at which stage or across which stages of an individual’s career, career advisors and human resource management professionals can give more targeted advice concerning career management practices.

The present study contributes to the literature by investigating how employees may make progress within their employability trajectories.

The demographic shift and the rapid rate of innovations put age and employability high on policy makers’ and human resource managers’ agenda. However, the authors do not sufficiently understand the link between these concepts. The authors set out to investigate the relationship between age and employability and aim to identify motivational mediators of this relationship. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the roles of future time perspective and goal orientation.

The authors conducted quantitative, cross-sectional survey research (n=282) in three Dutch and Austrian organizations. The authors used structural equation modeling to investigate the relationships between chronological age, future time perspective, goal orientations, and employability.

Future time perspective and goal orientation strongly relate to employability. The authors found indirect relationships between age and employability via perceived remaining opportunities.

The results question the often simplistic use of chronological age in employability and human resource management research. Therefore, the authors call for more research to investigate the relationship between age and employability more deeply.

The findings contribute new insights for the career development issues of an increasingly older workforce. This shifts the focus from age, a factor outside our control, to motivation.

This study contributes evidence for the relationships of chronological age, future time perspective, and goal orientation with employability. It extends literature by criticizing the prevalent use of chronological age and investigating mediation effects.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of chronological age and formal and informal learning activities on employability. Furthermore, indirect effects of age on employability via learning activities were tested.

The authors conducted quantitative, cross-sectional survey research (n=780) in three Dutch and Austrian organizations to study the relationship between chronological age, formal and informal learning activities, and employability using structural equation modeling.

The authors find that both formal and informal learning increase employees’ employability. However, each type of learning contributes to different components of employability. Additionally, the authors find indirect effects of chronological age on employability via formal learning.

The results question the focus on chronological age in organizational and political decision making and contribute new insights for the management of an increasingly older workforce.

The findings question the predominant use of chronological age as decisive criterion in organizational and national policies and call for closer examination of stereotypes against older employees. Employees should be supported in pursuing learning activities – irrespective of their chronological age. The implications of limiting employees’ access to formal learning activities may limit their future employability. Individual employees, however, are in control of their informal learning activities, and this is a very important lever to maintain and develop employability.

Given the increasing dependency of social welfare systems on older people's active participation in the labor market, this study stresses that it is not chronological age per se that affects people's employability. This diverges from the way of how chronological age is used in policy making.

This study contributes further evidence for the relationships of age and formal and informal learning on employability. Additionally, it extends previous literature by examining different effects on different facets of employability, criticizing the prevalent use of chronological age, and investigating potential mediation effects.