If you go to Jelling to see Denmark's birth certificate, the Jelling stones, the likelihood that a pensioner will show you around or sell you a ticket is quite high.
More than one in five of the 23 employees at Kongernes Jelling are pensioners. In addition, four are over 60.
And the museum is not the only place in the country where pensioners take an extra turn in the labor market. Places like Djurs Sommerland, Tivoli, and Fårup Sommerland also have success with older employees.
----------------------------------------
The number of pensioners in jobs has increased
----------------------------------------
In 2021, 70,301 Danes worked after turning 67.
In 2026, the number had risen to 105,366.
That corresponds to an increase of 35,065 over the past five years.
Source: The Danish Agency for Labour Market and Recruitment
At Kongernes Jelling, museum director Morten Teilmann-Jørgensen is delighted with the older employees.
- They can make people believe they have a great deal of knowledge, he says with a twinkle in his eye and continues:
- Well, you can be a bit skeptical when you meet a young person. The older ones have some experience, and they also just have an enormous desire to tell stories.
-------------------
Not a full-time job
-------------------
The secret to getting many older employees on board starts with good working conditions.
- We have to make it interesting for them, so it also has to be such that they don't necessarily have to work 37 hours a week, says Morten Teilmann-Jørgensen.
One of the guides at Kongernes Jelling, who retired long ago, is 81-year-old Søren Mols.
He retired from his job as a teacher in 2007, and last year he gave 90 guided tours and lectures, each lasting an hour. This year he expects to reach the same number.
- I find it hard to imagine a daily life where I just have to stay at home and not really have anything to get up for. But having a request to do a couple of guided tours in the coming week, that's really great.
81-year-old Søren Mols is glad that he once accepted the offer to become a guide.
-------------------------------------
You shouldn't be afraid of the elderly
-------------------------------------
Although more than one in five employees at Kongernes Jelling are pensioners, museum director Morten Teilmann-Jørgensen would like even more in the future.
He doesn't have a specific strategy, but he has a few points of attention that others can also learn from.
- When we look for new employees, we don't think that if they are over 60, they are difficult to train. We must constantly give the elderly a chance, because you really get a lot in return, says Morten Teilmann-Jørgensen and adds:
- We also need to constantly keep an eye out for whether there is anyone in the neighborhood who has retired and whom we might like to hire.
Morten Teilmann-Jørgensen would like to get more young people to visit Kongernes Jelling, but he is not afraid that older employees will scare the young away.
Warning: This article was translated by a Large Language Model, in case of doubt, you can always visit the original source.