Government plans to scrap fixed retirement age from October 2011

In principle, a good idea - with an aging population and a shrinking working population saving less on average than previous generations, it will help to encourage more people to continue to work.

So where are the jobs for school leavers going to come from?

I think this is progress but also know from clients that many are ready to stop working well before age 65 at least this gives choice and can retain valuable experience within firms that can be lost. I guess it depends on the job you do as manual occupations can make many people past their peak well before then but admin / desk based jobs can be performed by many well past 65. In the end surely it all about choice?

It will have an impact on group risk benefits.

Death in service benefits for a 75year old will not be cheap.

Any way why to 64 year olds, most past their family rearing stage & need for mortgage protection need the same cover as a 30year old with a wife two young children and a mortgage. Then the day the 65 year olds retire they lose all cover.

We need benefits to be flexible and to reflect the cost of delivery.

Final salary schemes will have to cope with a gradual reduction in hours.

Employers will have to find real reasons to let people go instead of parking them in less demanding roles waiting for them to reach 65.

Employers will have to find ways to reduce the wages of those performing less well as they age, as they can no longer rely on high inflation and low rises.

In short managers will have to manage the mix and cost of their workforce.

It is a question of matching resources to the organisations needs.

Then the issue arises of that tax called national Insurance

If there is no retirement age, then logically age should not be a criteria of how much NI is paid

Similarly for other social security benefits which have SPA as an age which alters what is paid and why. E.g. when will JSA be paid to?

In case of doubt I am for flexibility of retirement age as it reflects the reality of the world. However we need to think through the consequences.

What will the attitude of banks and mortgage lenders be? Some will only lend to age 65 and others want a huge breakdown of income in retirement, even if the mortgage is only going past age 65 by 2 - 3 years.

@Sean Kelly: They said the same when women started intering the workforce in large numbers and again about mass immigration. The economy expanded to create the jobs - and it will do again.

@Sean Kelly: Sorry - Correction: They said the same when women started entering the workforce in large numbers and again about mass immigration. The economy expanded to create the jobs - and it will do again.

Tim, I prefer "intering" the workforce!

Some interesting points here. Necessity being the mother of invention, could this be a driver to Employee Bens and Mortgage providers to restructure their offerings?

Love how our industry is constantly evolving to meet the changing requirements of its clients!

When do people who have worked all their life, and paid into the system, get a chance to enjoy retirement without guilt? Won't this make people who actually want to stop working feel guilty for wanting the life they are entitled to? The jobs should be for young fit people with families. At age 65 people need to enjoy their life. I feel that if the retirement age was actually lowered (controversial) then we could hope to get the younger people into work to give them some self worth. Let's give working people a decent wage - enough to live on and save for retirement- and have a happy population instead of youngsters struggling on benefits, the elderly struggling on benefits. I know prices would rise and that would be inflation, so what's wrong with that? At least people would be happier. I know, I'm hedonisitic!

Hey, who says you have to do what the Government say! You can retire when you want! That's always been the case! Think! It ain't illegal yet! Surely the Advisers job is to make sure people CAN retire when THEY want - or have they forgotten that? Too busy shifting money around to justify their existence!

I see this as an extremely positive move. We have to get away from the notion of a fixed retirement age. It is clear from the comments above that there are many views on when to retire. This reflects the fact that we are all different and have a range of requirements.

Flexibility is the key allowing manual workers to retire at an earlier date seems perfectly sensible. Equally there will be many non manual workers who wish to work longer.

JaywKay has made some interesting points but there are solutions to all of these we just need to embrace the new environment and adapt. Take NI for example the upper age limit for payment could be State Pension Age. However if we are going to look at some retiring earlier then perhaps we need to look at how the State should provide for those who are unable to work to this age.

In response to Sean Kelly I agree with Tim growing the working population will grow the economy should in theory we should all be better off as a result!

However in any of these debates I always end up in the same place which is that we must ensure that there is a much better understanding of the need for retirement planning in the general population. Comments like I've paid into the system for 40 years so now the system can take care of me are at best unhelpful. They demonstrate a poor understanding of the costs of providing pension. Once people get their head round this fundamental point we will have a much greater understanding of the very real need to save.

Being able to continue working is a valuable option for the older worker, and staying on will help maintain what little quality we have left in many organisations: people over 60 were at least educated, and those bright enough benefited greatly from the education received in those days.

Passing jobs on to the younger uneducated majority automatically reduces the quality in the workplace, so overall, an older working population is a major plus.

Maybe, just maybe, this will cause a re-appraisal of education and behavioral standards in today's society so that people will come onto the jobs market properly prepared and behaved. I won't hold my breath though.

Okay people lets get real. The retirement age in the US, Canada and I believe Australia was lifted years ago, we are just catching up. It is all about flexibility and giving people a choice. There will be ramifications in all areas, there always is with change, but lets run with.

Another FOS's failures.

So where's all the compensation that's being paid out to those who had endowments that went passed 60/65 going to be repaid to firms then?

What about the people who have to work alongside the over 65's, and who do their work for them? There is no check on over 65's to see if they are fit or able to continue to do the work involved, just a form with a tick box to say they wish to continue, while they get slower and slower, and get paid the same money and receive the benefits of retirement! Young people meanwhile cant get into the job market! Madness!!!

We are taught by the CII that NI is just a tax by another name. I struggle to think of another tax that we stop paying because we reach a certain age.

Income tax is in principle payable from birth to death. An ARA gives some respite to those over SPA until they earn too much and it is clawed back.

Perhaps a low NI after SPA would be a way to pay for long term care & the increasing costs of the NHS.

I agree with Sean.

Looking at the unemployment stats for those aged over 65 (< 3%) and those aged under 25 (> 17%) suggests this is a bad policy. To those who believe the economy will grow to create jobs I suggest they look again at the under 25 statistic and explain quite how there are still that many in that age group that are unemployed at the end of a period that has seen the largest continual expansion this economy has ever seen.

It is hardly surprising an IFA website which relies on sales of financial products to those with money will support this move as it is the people of this age who already have the majority of the wealth and now they are going to get an opportunity for even more.

One day I suspect the younger generation will realise what a miserable lot they are being dealt and rise up against it; then we will all be in trouble.

Come and live in an inner city environment and ask a infant school age child what they want to do when they grow up - Answer "Go to the Post Office and get money like Mummy and Daddy". Young people are not dealt a miserable lot - its a learned misery!!!!

Where I live is no concern of yours and does nothing to the discussion.

It is a fact that the over 65's have benefitted from mortgages where inflation has eroded the debt, free university eduction, massive increases in the value of their property and final salary pension payments. This has accrued them, who represent only 15% of the populatio, over 50% of the entire wealth of the country.

Contrast this with younger people who cannot make it onto the property ladder, have to pay for their university eduction through student loans, can look forward to a NEST account paying sod all at retirement and can probably look forward to being taxed more heavily to pay for old peoples rising pension and health care costs. This group of people own 10% of wealth and represent 32% of the population.

The gap is clear and it is that gap which is the injustice and I don't believe this new policy will help that injustice get any better; quite the reverse in fact.

I am not surprised infant school children come out with sayings such as that. My niece always comes out with "well go the hole in the wall and get some" if I use the line that I haven't got any money to buy her something.

Living in booming Cambridge,even in this recession,I cannot bring myself to feel sorry for younger elements of the workforce.We have only around 2-3% unemployment here.The papers have 2-3 pages of job vacancies,yet we still have a significant number of young people who would rather stay at home & live off their parents than take a job that doesn't have a fashionable background.Primark, a notorious minimum wage employer, had a queue of youngsters applying to work at its new store in Cambridge.Yet the local Tesco which pays its new starters more than Primark were offering supervisors, struggles to fill vacancies,relying heavily on immigrant & older people for their workforce.It is not always a learned misery,or being dealt a bad hand.

We all recently read about civil servants being able to get redundancy of up to 6 times pay. They should rub their hands with glee as this will no longer be void at NRD. Oh happy days for the public coffers. Pass the champers please.

Were's the beef?

There's nothing on the DWP yet to back up the BBC story. Where's the consultation paper to show what they are thinking?

Without it this is all fluff and nonesense.

I think it depends very much on what type of job you do.If you are a pen-pusher it's easy to work on till you drop, however if you do a physical job then that is not the case. I don't see where these jobs are going to come from for the over 60's far less the young ones.