According to a recent study by the Resolution Foundation, Unfinished Business: Barriers and Opportunities for Older Workers, the proportion of older jobless people in the UK remaining unemployed for more than a year has risen from 33.2% to 44.5% since 2008.
This is in marked contrast to comparable economies such as Canada, Germany and Australia, over the same period. Over a million more older people would be in work if the UK matched the employment rate for 50 to 64 year olds of better performing countries in the OECD. The study also found that older women face particular barriers, with only 60% of older women in work compared with 72% of older men.
The report identifies six key hurdles to supporting greater employment among over-50s:
• a lack of adequate financial incentives to remain in, or return to, work;
• significant caring responsibilities;
• lack of employment support to move back into work, including training;
• limited access to flexible working opportunities;
• continued age discrimination;
• poor health.
Nothing new there, then. But the problem in dealing with the situation lies in getting a grip on who needs to do what in the UK in order to overcome these obstacles – which obviously aren’t insurmountable in other countries. Here the report hits the nail on the head when it states, “[In the UK] the overall policy framework for older people, whether working or retired, has evolved in a highly piecemeal fashion.”
Now we have had the legislation demonstrating government support for the economic reasons why people must work longer, what is actually going to change to overcome these barriers – and who is going to drive that change? The workplace, obviously, is the most natural arena – but maybe, in respect of the first and last of the barriers identified above, it is older people themselves? Perhaps a grey revolution is needed whereby the over 50s take to the streets and demonstrate for employer support in tackling the other four issues? An across-the-board older workers union perhaps…?
The report is available at: http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/unfinished-business-barriers-and-opportunities-old/
