London, April 18 (IANS) Senior employees may be frail or less agile than their juniors, but they more than make up with greater experience, teamwork and success at coping when things go wrong.

 
 The researchers, from the University of Mannheim in Germany, said their findings debunked the idea that older workers should be made redundant to boost productivity.
 
 They also found that younger, more highly educated workers at a Mercedes-Benz truck factory were less productive than those who had fewer qualifications, perhaps because the educated workers got bored more easily, reports the Daily Mail.
 
 "In many countries, lower productivity among older workers is used as a motivation for early retirement policies," they write, according to a Mannheim statement.
 
 "If this were true, the ageing populations in many developed countries would have negative effects on overall productivity. These results cast doubt on such beliefs."
 
 The researchers argue that in sectors where physical strength is less important than in manufacturing, such as in the service sector, it is likely that older workers are even more productive.
 
 They also found that a higher proportion of women in the workforce is bad for productivity in young teams and good in old teams.
 
 They say women make fewer errors, but young male workers get distracted, and are likely to make more errors if women are in the team.