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Wednesday 28th April 2010
Forced retirement 'costs billions'
Forcing older workers to retire cost the UK economy £3.5 billion last year, including £2 billion in lost earnings, a charity has claimed.
Age UK said an estimated 120,000 people were forced to retire in 2009, "draining" billions of pounds from the country's economy.
The group urged the main political parties to scrap the so-called default retirement age in a bid to end "forced retirement".
Age UK director Michelle Mitchell said: "While party leaders are gearing up to lock horns over the state of the economy, they should remember that scrapping the default retirement age is a simple step to boost public finances.
"Default retirement is not only an unfair, outdated piece of legislation, it also causes real harm to our economy and public finances by depriving the labour market of experienced, skilled workers who would otherwise be paying taxes.
"Nine in 10 older workers oppose forced retirement. It's now time for the parties to go beyond warm words and give mature workers a simple, radical pledge to scrap forced retirement."
Research for Age UK showed that almost 120,000 people aged between 65 and 70 were forced to retire in the last year, suggesting that most would otherwise have stayed in work.
Source: Press Association