News
Government signals end to forced retirement
Anti-age discrimination is back on the agenda as the Appeal Court is to hear a legal challenge today to the default retirement age in a case supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The default retirement age is currently age 65 which means that workers will normally be retired at that age, but can ask to continue working beyond that age. Employers, however, are entitled to refuse such requests without having to justify their reasons for doing so.
The Government has now signalled that it intends to bring forward a review into the default retirement age which was due to take place in 2011, indicating that it may raise the default retirement age or scrap it altogether.
The CBI says the current system works well and that 80 per cent of requests for longer working are granted. Scrapping the option to compulsorily retire workers would create friction with older employees and encourage more unfair dismissal cases, it says.
But organisations representing older people argue that valuable skills and experience can be lost when healthy workers are retired purely on the grounds of age. In any case, the state retirement age is due to rise to age 66 in 2024, 67 in 2034 and 68 in 2044 which would leave it out of kilter with the default retirement age.
Currently 1.3 million people are working beyond age 65, either because they enjoy working or have to work for financial reasons. Even so a number of high profile challenges against the current anti-age discrimination law have been unsuccessful.
Pensions Minister Angela Eagle say: "Many people want to work a bit beyond retirement and wind down their working lives rather than have them abruptly cut off."
Most people would agree with that, but the question remains as to where the jobs are going to come from. With rising unemployment, which is particularly affecting younger people, the Government has not picked the best of times to resurrect this issue.
Similarly, the Government's announcement this week that it intends to discourage welfare dependancy and encourage disability claimants to back into work, is widely welcomed but couldn't have come at a worse time.
The time to introduce such reforms is when the economy is booming, not when dole queue are lengthening.
For more on pensions, take a look at the Defaqto guides
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