G'day – in my last message I talked about the desire of older workers to work longer and the good news for those people is that our new coalition government is to phase out the Default Retirement Age enabling those older workers to do just that.
But here’s the rub… the Default Retirement Age may well make it easier for people in the UK to carry on working beyond a set age but the simple fact is a proportion of the 'greying' population may not be physically able to work!
Our report shows the number of workers aged 55 plus is expected to grow from 5.14 million to 7.16 million in the next decade. The fact we are all living longer is certainly something I think we should celebrate.
But my concern is that if people choose to defer retirement, they may also choose to defer saving for it. And a recent report out from the ONS shows people in the UK are saving less today than at any time in the past 40 years so perhaps my fears are already being confirmed!
Another interesting snippet from our research was that 48% of workers today would like to work either full or part-time beyond the Default Retirement Age, but is our welfare system robust enough to cope with this?
As a nation we need to start viewing retirement as a process in our lives and not a one-off event. I hope abolishing the Default Retirement Age will help people today face the reality of working longer in the future.
But to help this 'process' mentality when it comes to saving, we need to provide the right options that will help us save in a way that suits our lifestyles. We need our new coalition government to support employers’ endeavours and foster a savings culture.
Ultimately working longer should be a choice, not a necessity, don’t you think?
I’d love to hear your views on this too.
Trevor Matthews, CEO, Friends Provident
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