Scrap default retirement age to aid economic recovery

It seems perverse that the Department for Business Innovation and Skills seems to have firmly set out a 'we have no plans for a change' line, when it looks like most of the country wants the choice, pensions are insufficient, people live longer, and the historical reasons for a pension age limit (hard or dangerous physical work) are mostly gone.

It also seems perverse that this body seems to be the authoritative voice the government is turning to on what is clearly a wanted change in social policy.

It's no business of any quango, including EHRC, to interfere in arrangements between employer and employee regarding retirement. If an employer requires retirement at 65 the employee knows that when he/she joins.

There's too much interference in business by people who usually have no experience, for instance the latest proposals on maternity and paternity leave result in prospective employers being very wary of taking on anyone younger than 40. The politicians and their expensive quangos just don't think things through. No wonder the country is in such a mess.

The reason people are planning to work beyond retirement - is not choice -it is necessity. If your endowment fell short and your pension planning has been decimated (cheers to the Banks who run the Fed), you have no other option.

Financial benefit is all one way - delay retirement - government doesn't have to pay out - more in the gravy train for politicians to dip their snout in and more in their pot for their inflation linked pensions.

Shortgage of worker and skills !!! - look at unemployment and think failure in training. Add in too many places at university for those essential skills that only media studies and archeology degrees will fill, and, the problem becomes clearer.

Dumbing down the youth may give a compliant unquestioning workforce - but it does have drawbacks.

Hard work never hurt anyone - the queen mother and vicars are testimony to that.

First comment. I'm getting close to retirement age but why should I be forced to. I'm as healthy as most people in their 30's and jog around 40 miles per week to maintain that fitness. I've not had a cushy job either, as an engineer I've done my fair share of hard physical labour and still do. I don't want to retire at 65 because I'm not ready and not for any other reason.

Second comment. I no longer work as an engineer because I'm too old. Despite having enough skills and qualifications to satisfy most employers the only employment I can get is in a contact centre. I keep my skills up to date by taking on freelance work but that is not the same as being able to throw yourself into one job.

There not only needs to be a change of law in this country but a change of attitude as well. There seems to be a mind-set which eliminates skilled workers over 50 from the labour market so that suddenly adding a wealth of knowledge for employers to draw on simply by eliminating compulsory retirement isn't going to happen over night.

I'm lucky because I have enough skills to allow me to still get work in the IT industry and I'm getting by with a little to spare but it would be nice to feel needed, wanted and a worthwhile member of our community again.

gazkaz - Thin end - THICK WEDGE

says:

"Hard work never hurt anyone - the queen mother and vicars are testimony to that."

I can assume by this comment that gazkaz is either living on another planet or taking the p*ss. To quote these examples as as hard-working groups is utterly ridiculous.

The reason that so many people are living longer now is that they do not have to do the very hard laborious jobs that were done by our forefathers without the assistance of mechanisation. Think of coal and slate miners, and canal builders just for a start.

That kind of hard work killed many people well before their normal retirement age.

It wasn't that long ago that "hard working men" lived no longer than 45 on average, now contrast that with the Queen Mother and Vicars!

What levels will they fall to so as to not have to pay decent pensions to those who have worked and paid for them all their lives.

Yet I hear of a 20 year old youth who has been chucked out of Collage for not bothering to attend, lost his evening job for the same reason and thrown out of his parents house for laying in bed all day, setting a bad example to the rest of his family. He is now given £120 per week to keep him at the YWCA

Not a bad idea though me-thinks

The anger i feel at these bureaucrats is profound. Who the hell do they think they are?

What on earth are they thinking? Are farmers going to have to down tools at 65? Are self-employed businesses going to have to close their doors at 65? Or does it only apply to PAYE? And why?

You will probably find that the bureaucrats at the DBIS are exempt or something?

Unbelievable.

good idea from pen pushers or old people with no life outside of work.step aside if you have good pension and well of and give other people a chance to move up the pat ladder or suffer the back lash from the next generation who turn to crime because the old sados wont give any one else a chance.please dont say that i enjoy my job to keep other people out of work

There is nothing to stop people working beyong 65 if it is by mitual agreemnet with your employer.

What the unions are asking for is for vast redundancy pay at 65 when people stop work.

The consequence will be people being sacked for not being up to the job because they are too old and unnecessary bitterness between empoyers and long term employees.

I agree with Alan. It is no good those of us who are approaching the current retirement age hugging on to our cozy positions like a bunch of geriatric bed-blockers. We owe it to succeeding generations to allow them to work too - and pay for our pensions. I strongly suspect that the work dodgers referred to in this correspondence will not be looked to to fill our own posts but will merely go on to breed feral child abusers like the Edlington kids. Presumably our own dear intelligent hard working children will be needed to fill the jobs which we relinquish - unless you know your children better than I do.