Ministers are busy drafting up proposals to change the retirement age and get rid of the necessity for employers to release people who are at work once they have reached the age of 65. This move comes following the realisation that the population in general live longer now which also means that the majority of people will spend a considerable amount of their life on retirement which in turn means a higher cost to the state.
The theory behind this could justify the need to look at the current scheme again but any government that simply abolishes the retirement age as it stands right now without making sure that discrimination against those over 40/50 is dealt with will simply be creating a bigger problem than the one they are trying to resolve. Front line experience tells me that the way employers see workers over the age of say 50 is far worst than any other group of individuals. So we could have a situation where if someone is made redundant at 63 they will have little to no chance of getting another job and will simply be thrown on the unemployment register. So on balance I do not agree that the approach should be to increase the retirement age. What I think will be reasonable is to state that an employer should not have the right to force someone to retire just because they are 65. Nasty employers will of course find a way to remove older workers via redundancies but the stats will show a clear link with age. Unison and the TUC must do more to ensure that we are not forced into ridiculous situations with this.
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