For years now, Spain has been experiencing a trend towards an aging population, working lives are becoming longer and organizations need more judgment to navigate contexts of increasing complexity. However, professional opportunities for senior talent continue to be a pending issue for the marketing and communication sector.

This is stated in the report “The future was also this”, prepared by the Evercom agency, which analyzes the situation of senior talent, job longevity and generational diversity in the communication, marketing, creativity and journalism industries. To this end, it has analyzed official and sectoral sources on demographics, employment, training and digitalization, as well as contributions from professionals and specialists, considering senior talent to be professionals over 55 years of age.

The impact of demographic changes

The document mainly points to the need for companies to adapt to demographic changes. In Spain, the population aged 65 and over already represents 20.4% of the total and is estimated to reach a maximum of 30.5% around 2055, according to the 2024-2074 Population Projections of the INE (National Institute of Statistics). At the same time, the expected length of working life stands at 36.5 years.

Furthermore, according to the study, senior profiles have a clear weight in the labor structure at the European level. In 2024, the participation rate of people aged 55 to 64 in the EU reached 68.2% and their employment rate rose to 65.2%, according to the European Commission’s Joint Employment Report 2026.

The data show that it is not a minority that remains exceptionally in the market. It is a structural change in the composition of society and work, which requires changing the way in which organizations
They think about age, training, promotion and continuity.

One of the challenges, according to Evercom, is found in what happens when leaving the market and re-entering it. And in this circumstance, professionals face a system that interprets their career as too long, expensive, specific or too difficult to fit into structures designed for other profiles. These ideas condition selection processes that, on many occasions, discard candidates before knowing what they are looking for and what they can contribute.

The report highlights, based on an analysis by the SEPE on employment in people over 45 years of age, that the group over 59 years of age concentrates 29.5% of unemployed claimants. Furthermore, more than half of the unemployed people over 55 years of age are long-term unemployed, according to a study by InfoJobs-Esade on the labor market in Spain in 2025. Within the total of long-term unemployed, those over 55 now represent 32%, compared to 14% in 2015. And 6 out of every 10 long-term unemployed people over 55 years of age are women.

Take advantage of experience and rethink age

Beyond unemployment, the situation reflects the existence of a wasted experience. The marketing and communication sector is a reflection of this tension, because it requires professionals capable of learning new tools and techniques, but also the judgment to decide how and why to use them.

According to the Evercom report, the conversation about senior talent revolves around what a company gains when it bets on it, but also what it loses if it leaves it out. And in this case the agency assures that it would be ignoring context, criteria, transfer of knowledge, relationships, serenity and the ability to hold difficult conversations.

However, the need for companies to digitize and update can generate biases, more or less conscious or deliberate, that relegate senior professionals to the background. But it is not a good idea to assume that age reliably predicts people’s ability to learn, adapt, or continue to provide value.

What’s more, experts encourage us to review these types of conceptions. There is a tendency to confuse experience with rigidity and to assume that a senior profile is less willing to innovate, apply technology or discover new methodologies, but in reality they can demonstrate greater adaptability because they have already navigated multiple market transformations, both at a technical and cultural level. The text reminds us that experience is a differential asset, especially when it is accompanied by continuous learning and adaptation to the new skills demanded by the market.

Although many professionals and companies recognize the value of senior talent, and talk about the importance of generational diversity, the discourse does not always materialize in the hiring, promotion, training or team composition processes. This results in a frequent paradox: professional maturity is demanded, but some of the signs that usually accompany it are penalized.

The friction points for senior talent

According to data provided by InfoJobs, of the 59,169 profiles accumulated in the marketing and communication category in 2025 within the job portal, only 1,361 are between 55 and 65 years old. Overall, those over 55 represent only 2.35%, despite the fact that experience occupies a central place in the profession. The data does not directly conclude that there is no senior talent in the sector, but it suggests a disconnection between senior profiles and the new job search formulas, which are usually the first filter to access job opportunities.

During reentry, different issues arise, including perceived overqualification, fear of expressing salary expectations, automated filters, a career that is difficult to translate into standardized forms, and offers that seek experience without assuming what remuneration or autonomy entails. When selecting, most of the time spaces are not created for senior profiles to communicate what they want or what they can contribute.

These difficulties in accessing stable positions lead to talent choosing to develop their activity as a consultant, freelancer or external collaborator. That is, as the report points out, experience is often incorporated to resolve a crisis, define a strategy or accompany a complex decision, but it is not always integrated into the teams from which it could transfer knowledge and participate in the daily culture of the organization.

Added to this is that many companies directly prefer to propose external consulting contracts rather than offering permanent positions of high responsibility. As Evercom explains, this dynamic may be short-term, but it can generate losses in cultural influence, internal memory or the ability to follow decisions from within. “External consulting can be valuable, but it does not always replace the stable presence of profiles with judgment within the teams.”, states the report.

Beyond hiring, managing senior talent also encounters challenges. One of the frequent errors is found in inadequate integration: cultures that continue to reward homogeneity, lack of team preparation, failure to review biases or not clarify what specific value is expected from the incorporation. This shows the need for a cultural change to stop treating senior talent as an exception that must be accommodated within the organization and begin to truly consider it as a strategic asset that can raise the quality of leadership and culture.

Likewise, training is also another point to reflect on. According to Euostat data, in 2025, 60% of the population aged 16 to 74 had at least basic digital skills, although there was a clear gap by age: among people aged 65 to 74, this percentage drops to 33%. In this sense, it is important that organizations offer updating opportunities before turning technological knowledge into a reason for discarding.

Keys to converting senior talent into a strategic asset

Evercom concludes its report by collecting key ideas to improve the integration of talent in the current labor ecosystem:

• Review the way in which companies understand age in a society that is going through demographic and cultural changes derived from longer life expectancies.
• Re-entry into the labor market is a critical point: it is advisable to rethink the selection processes to accompany senior professionals
• Senior talent should no longer be read in terms of cost or risk, but rather as synonymous with judgment, experience or knowledge transfer.
• Although there are gaps in digital skills, it does not mean that there is an inability to update, and they must be overcome with training investment, both on the part of the organizations and the candidates.
• The coexistence of ages is not enough, integration in processes, decisions and leadership is necessary.
• Reducing senior talent to mentoring or legacy limits their value contribution, so it is advisable to encourage their effective participation in the company
• The integration of senior talent is seen as a competitive advantage in a market that increasingly requires a greater diversity of perspectives to make decisions and adapt to changes.

More info: The future was also this