The beginning of the twenty-first century represents the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which, unlike its predecessors, is characterized by great digitalization, higher connections between physical things and the virtual world, the development of genetics, artificial intelligence, hyper connectivity. These characteristics have generated many changes in the way work is performed. In order to meet these challenges, employees must increase their flexibility in the way they perceive work time, wages, tasks, workspace and so on. And, in an era of technology and digitalization, employees must keep their skills and knowledge, related to new technology, up to date. Several other aspects related to employability will be discussed in this article.

Across the world, the number of old adults has grown significantly over recent decades. This has raised a number of questions related to the availability of human resources in the present day. One current concern, visible in society, is related to older employees’ competence and performance. Often, older employees are perceived as less competent and perceived that they perform less well than younger employees, but this image does not meet the reality. Studies related to older employees’ performance show that certain aspects of performance are either equal to, slightly lower, or even higher than those of younger employees. Important elements that make the performance of older adults comparable with the performance of younger adults, among others, include experience, and level of past and present cognitive and physical stimulation; elements with very large interpersonal variability.

A new trend began to emerge with the improvement of living conditions and medical advancement: the trend towards longevity. This trend appeared slowly at beginning of the industrial revolution but has increased significantly in the 20th and the 21st centuries. This trend, which initially started hesitatingly in developed countries, has now extended to reach across the entire planet. Europe, as an initiator of the industrial revolution, is one of the world’s regions with the most aged population. One consequence of an aging process compounded by a drop in fertility rates is reflected in the organizational context, where potentially available employees are also much older. This has led to many changes in the proportion of employees over 60 years of age, and will require other changes in order to provide the human resource necessary for the optimal progress of professional activities.

Today, retirement is a process that many people have access to. This is due to the fact that global life expectancy has increased, and in many countries retirement, as a form of remuneration after years of work, is guaranteed by social security funds. For many members of society, the accessibility of retirement creates the need to know more about it. In this respect, the present article addresses the issue of defining retirement and lists the main predictors of retirement, or those factors related to the continuation of professional activity. At the same time, this article lists several factors, identified in the literature, as predictive factors of adjustment after retirement.