Uut of curiosity, say your productivity really did plummet – you became very slow, started making lots of errors etc. does anybody know how could your employer get rid of you? I could very well be wrong, but I didn’t think it was easy to fire somebody for not being very good at their job.

‘But there’s also good evidence that shorter and uglier workers are less productive too.’

Not if they get into the specialist porn market.

I’m looking forward to retirement but I’m not looking forward to retiring into poverty – where most of my generation will end up – so would choose to work longer if necessary.

Age shouldn’t be a barrier to employment. I suspect employers are only keen on it because younger staff are cheeper, having accumulated fewer incremental wage increases.

This is a moot point, the CBI will never win this arguement, with changing age requirement for the basic state pension, the “fire you at 65″ position won’t hold. The government isn’t going to give “flexibility” to employers to fire 65 year olds only for them to be on JSA because they’re not old enough for the basic state pension.

Isn’t this another way that the Baby Boomers have found to shaft younger generations, this time by never making way for them in the desirable and well-paid jobs that they (the Baby Boomers) currently occupy?

I work somewhere where there is a finite number of (desirable, permanent) posts and people tend not to leave them voluntarily. The only way for younger people to get these posts it to wait for someone to retire. Now they’re going to have to wait for people to die.

And when in the next couple of decades you’ve got Oxford dons in their 80s and 90s (as in equivalent US institutions who removed the mandatory retirement age a while back), aren’t we going to have greater costs in terms not only of payroll but of statutory sick pay?

If we are worried about ageism, how about letting all adults (over 16) vote?!

these tend to be less productive than younger workers

People should be assessed on their individual merits, not on the basis of their group averages.

If I understand the CBI’s position correctly, then you’ve got the wrong end of the stick.

All the employers’ groups (CBI, BCC, IoD etc.) have campaigned to increase the retirement age (to either 68 or 70 – pretty sure I heard one of them on the radio a couple of weeks back saying that it should be seriously expedited). And they’ve all campaigned to make it easier for people to flexibly retire. So it’s not like they think people hit 65 and become cr*p at their jobs overnight.

I think that the nub of the argument is that you have to be able to get rid of people at some stage (‘cos productivity evidently does drop – not at the same age for everybody, obviously), and that the DRA is a relatively ‘humane’, if somewhat unfair way of doing it. Otherwise you’ll have a load of 62 yr olds going through painful performance management procedures when at the moment they’re just kept on until they’re 65.

From talking to HR types, the problem is that you need to have a discussion between employer and employee about how (completely stop/ go part-time/ step down to an easier job etc.) and when they want to retire. But at the moment the employees are scared ‘cos they think the employer will think they’re admitting they’re useless, and the employer can’t broach the topic for fear of an uncapped age discrimination tribunal.

Not an easy problem to solve, but mis-representing the arguments of the other side doesn’t make it easier to find a workable solution.

There are people out there who probably are no longer up to the job. Some of them never were. The employer especially in a small firm, will keep them on to 65 knowing that they can say goodbye at that point without hurting their feelings. This isn’t just being nice. They really don’t want to say to Reg or Doris “I’m sacking you because you are no good” and then there are tears at bedtime etc etc.

Some of these employers are crap because they have allowed situations to develop which should have been addressed years/decades ago.

It’s all very difficult and it will play out differently in different organizations. One size does not fit all in this case.

The only difference is, not everyone is ugly or short, whereas everyone will reach 65.

And if they dont they are not likely to complain.

I’m not bloody working past 50 if I can help it. Anyone who wishes to work over 65 is obviously lacking something in their life (or needs the money, I realise). But if you didn’t need the money and still chose to work… gosh. The mind boggles.

“In fact, you can think of older workers joining the labour market as a form of immigration – people migrate from retirement into the labour market. Why is the government so relaxed about this form of migration, but not about migration from other countries into the labour market?”

Because older workers are our people, Chris – the people that the British Government exists to serve.

Migrants from other countries aren’t. Got it ?

The state pension age is due to rise – 70 is now the likely final age. So, unless there is to be a big increase in unemployed older people claiming benefits, the default retirement age had to be raised above 65. The problem with this “work until you drop” strategy is that most of the elderly will not be fit to work. The Marmot report on health inequality explained that 75% would be unable to work by the age of 68. There is also a huge social gradient disguised by such average figures. The disability free life expectancy is only 53 for the poorest but rises to 68 for the richest. The flight to benfits will, however, be checked as Incapacity Benefit is superceded by the Employment Support Allowance. The IB assessment used to reject 37% as fit for work. The privatised assessment carried out by Atos is now refusing 69%. It will be a bleak time to be poor and old.

Astonishing that one can get away with what EEL @ 4 says without comment. If I was to say that black people are hogging jobs which white people need, or stupid people are hogging jobs which clever people need, just imagine the reaction.
I have pointed out before that whereas the comments policy penalises the standard totemic dreadfulnesses – “Misogynist, racist, homophobic and xenophobic” remarks – ageism is nowhere to be seen. It says a lot about the demographic of this blog, and the general attitude of young people towards older people.

There are many ways in which the work environment can (and has to) be restructured to enable people to work longer. Older workers can be given less onerous and physically demanding jobs. For instance, when I did my apprenticeship as a compositor, compositors, who worked standing up, graduated to being typesetters, who worked sitting down, towards the end of their career, if they wished. See this page if you are too young to remember metal type:

http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/Museum/printing/printers/wilkes/wilkes03.htm

People can gradually ease off from 5 down to 4, 3,2,1 days a week. Physically less able people can work from home. There are numerous possibilities. Number one priority is to get youngsters to understand that they are not the centre of the universe. Isn’t it extraordinary how many people are prepared to throw away huge reservoirs of experience and knowledge, both of which are in short supply in youngsters.

Betcha this thread won’t be very popular – it’s about old folks.

Trofim, I don’t think it is ageism at all. I support raising the retirement age. As life expectancy rises retirement ages should rise. The point about the baby boomers born between 1945-60 is they systematically looted society and then politically prevented their children and grandchildren enjoying the same benefits. I can imagine the judgement of future historians and it will not be positive.

@Trofim

I didn’t respond because I thought it was a fundamentally stupid idea and I didn’t expect anyone to take it seriously. Now it seems you have addressed it I a happy to help.

@Elizabeth Eva Leach

Look.

There is not a finite number of jobs.

Got it?

Even at your firm there is not a finite number of jobs. Unless your firm has existed forever (it hasn’t I’ll assume) it has at some stage created those jobs. One day it may create new jobs. If your firm does not, then…. another firm will!

You have no right to that job and no right to have the state help an employer sack someone who has done nothing wrong.

Next Point!

As the old aren’t stealing jobs – and I repeat, you cannot steal a job – then what is the objection to them working longer?

If they retire then everyone else has to work harder to support them. This means I get less of the value of the work I produce to spend on myself (or for the state to spend), this is bad. And, as we have established, there are not a finite number of jobs, I am worse off than I otherwise would be.

The selfishness of the babyboomers isn’t displayed by them keeping jobs, if it is displayed at all then it is only displayed by them retiring.

@1 Luis

Employers should have capability procedures and ill health procedures as part of the terms and conditions under which an employee works. They should clearly outline how someone who is unable to perform as required should be treated and the steps taken to help them improve their performance. If they cannot, and attempts to reassign them fail, they can be dismissed.

@15

Really, I look at how well the baby boomers I know are doing in their comfy early retirements and I fancy a bit of that. Why should I work until I drop in a country as rich as ours?

I know you fantasise that there is choice in whether people work or not but your logic bears little resemblance to reality. For someone who claims to be of the left your Marxist analysis is shaky too.

In some organizations things are like Elizabeth Eva Leach says.

For example, look at that almost stereotypical baby-boomer Alan Yentob. He’s squatted atop the BBC’s arts/creative coverage for so long that generations of talented arts programme makers have gone so far…. then disappeared into the oblivion of early retirement without ever reaching the pinnacle where their talents could come to complete fruition. Not because they weren’t good enough, but because the road was blocked.

Now I’m not saying Alan Yentob is useless, but I have to think quite a few years back (to when he was quite young!) to light on anything particularly exceptionally brilliant. If he’s still doing Imagine at 80 I think the culture will be poorer for it, that’s all.

Another point I think the economists among you are missing is that while it may be true in theory that there’s not a finite number of jobs and more should be created, the actual experience of many people in all kinds of organizations public and private over the past decade has been a narrative of constant downsizing.

Baby boomers. How does one qualify as a baby boomer? Is it mere year of birth? Born in 1947, am I one of those lucky exploiters? Rationing ended when I was six. Yes, I belong to that generation who had chicken once a year. I did my printing apprenticeship from 16-21. Lived in nurses’ homes and rented accommodation for most of the next 20 years, when I trained as a psychiatric and then a general nurse, and in those days retired nurses, if they hadn’t managed to land a well-off husband, lived in homes for retired gentlefolk. At around age 25 I first heard about a thing called university, in Oxford or Cambridge or somewhere like that. Aged 29 I summoned up courage, taught myself Russian to A-Level and went to university as a mature student. Graduating in 1980, not much call for Russian graduates, GCHQ didn’t want someone with my naughty background, so it was back to nursing, and from rented accommodation back into a nurses’ home. Aged 42, I had enough to put down on a house, and due to my waste not want not mindset, inherited from my early years, I paid it off within a few years, by living a spartan existence. Now, I discover, I have fleeced the current generation, the one which regards it as its right to have a year out in Thailand before doing a degree in golf course management. Can anyone explain how I did it? My economics is basic, you know – if you don’t need it, don’t buy it, never a borrower nor a lender be, that sort of thing. Never had a debt except my mortgage. Sorry, I know it’s a shameful thing to admit to nowadays.

Yurrzem @16. Thanks. Still sounds rather difficult to do in practice, mind.

there’s something here about hierarchical organizations. If firms are organized as hierarchies and people rise up these hierarchies as they get older, then extending their tenure will cause a temporary slow down in the rate at which younger people can move up. Of course not all jobs are full of old people at the top, and not everybody is interested in, or likely to, reach the top in any case, so this problem might not apply too widely.

But Cat @18 you should note the temporary nature of the change – it will mean a permanent change in the age composition of firms, but once things have adjusted to the new state, the rate at which old people “exit” will be the same as it is now. So you’ll just have to wait a bit longer for that creative director job.

@19

I wrote, “The baby boomers I know.” I don’t know you. I was using friends and aquaintances to illustrate a point but in doing I seem to have dislodged a chip from your shoulder. Sorry.

@20 Luis

Its not meant to be easy, but its meant to be a clear and fair procedure. How it works in practice is another question…

Contractual arrangements between employer and employee should cover the term of the employment and the manner of it’s termination.

Employment contracts are a matter between those signing them and are not an appropriate subject for government legislation.

There was a time when we looked forward to retirement.
Now it scares the shit out of us.
Perhaps the way forward is more job sharing and flexibility by employers and unions.
Definition of capitalism is making somebody buy something they don’t need.
Perhaps we need to change that way of thinking.

@ 4
Not sure your definition of capitalism is quite accurate. But it would certainly be a massive improvement in our society if people were able to distinguish wanting from needing. Should be in the national curriculum. In the sixties it was confidently forecast that by the year 2000, nobody would need to work more than 3 hours a week. What happened to that?

I think that it is important to note that in Spain, where labour laws make it more difficult to fire the older workers, young people find it very difficult to get a job, let alone a permanent one.

Spanish youth unemployment stands at 40.3% – (http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1020272.shtml)

@25

If we focussed on needs not wants then we probably would only have to work that little a week. But I betcha life would be dull as fuck. And that’s the problem…

Oh, and agree with the article. the CBI are fools.

[12] “Astonishing that one can get away with what EEL @ 4 says without comment. If I was to say that black people are hogging jobs which white people need, or stupid people are hogging jobs which clever people need, just imagine the reaction”.

Indeed – in many respects problems associated with ageism are just as unfair as other, slightly sexier, “isms”, yet in the main it is an issue that tends to be ignored?

@29

Quite so. At the other end of the spectrum, does the Labour Party support the equalisation of the minimum wage? Right now it is set at -
16 – 18: £3.57
18 – 21: £4.83
22 and over: £5.80
A 16 year-old doing exactly the same job as a 22 year old [on the NMW] is in effect around £4K worse off. Age is one of the few (or indeed, the only) places where an employed is able to pay unequal pay for equal work.

(obviously meant to say “employer” not “employed” in my last comment)

The NMW issue is just an equity efficiency trade-off, Mr S. Pill. If you want more equity then equalise the NMW and raise it for all. However, it will lead to a loss of efficiency as less are employed at that price. It all depends where you stand in the equity efficiency trade-off. A NMW is relatively new in the UK so there is not a great deal of knowledge how it has affected the labour market. However, in the US nearly all the research points to the children of the middle class who take a job while at college being the biggest gainers from the minimum wage not the poor.

@32

However, it will lead to a loss of efficiency as less are employed at that price.

Explain, please. I remember when the NMW legislation was being brought in a lot of Tories (including a lot of the current cabinet) were crying over the fact that it was Gov interfering with businesses rights to pay £2p/h and would lead to job losses – warnings that never came to fruition [and indeed it was the recession caused by right-wing deregulation and casino banking that caused far more job losses].

Well I am not arguing the Tory case just saying how I see it which is pretty standard economics. When it is said that a NMW causes unemployment no one apart from some on the Right who may misunderstand it is suggesting that firms respond in the short run by immediately laying off workers. What happens in the long run is less employment is created at that price thus causing unemployment. Therefore, there is a gain of equity for those in a minimum wage job. However, those who compete for jobs in the minimum wage labour market are faced with a smaller market because there are less jobs. Between the gains for some and the loss for others it is not at all clear if society net gains from a NMW.

As you say we had a banking crisis. I would dispute that the banking crisis caused the recession. What actually happened was the dramatic decline in the value of bank assets caused by the recession caused the banking crisis. However, that is beside the point. The demand for labour is elastic. The decline in demand for labour and the subsequent unemployment at the moment is evidence that labour demand is elastic. Therefore, if you increase the price of labour the quantity demanded at that price must fall.

Even though I know the NMW will cause less employment to be created I support the NMW because there will also be efficiency gains as firms are incentivised to be more productive.

@32 Richard W: “However, it will lead to a loss of efficiency as less are employed at that price. It all depends where you stand in the equity efficiency trade-off. A NMW is relatively new in the UK so there is not a great deal of knowledge how it has affected the labour market.”

One of the ideas floating around is that everyone should be in education up to the age of 18 years. Were that to be implemented, a bunch of bottom earners would be removed from the full time work market. It would be a good test of your theory, but not necessarily advantageous to the trial sample.

@34 Richard W: “As you say we had a banking crisis. I would dispute that the banking crisis caused the recession. What actually happened was the dramatic decline in the value of bank assets caused by the recession caused the banking crisis.”

Some of us would argue that the banks kept on running foolish practices until investors realised that the offered deals had little return. Banks responded by offering deals that had no return. Then it all fell over.

@34

If you first paragraph was true then we would have seen rising unemployment year upon year throughout Labour’s time in Government. Despite their (many) flaws, we didn’t – indeed at one point it was the lowest it’s ever been IIRC.
That aside, you say you support the NMW despite what you see as its economic flaws – in that case, why not support the principle of equal work for equal pay across all age ranges? Why should a 20-year old earn less than a 22 year-old when it may be the case – as it has been at one well known supermarket I had the misfortune to work for – that the former had been working there longer than the latter (thus more “skilled”)?
I mean I’m sure your kind of argument – from a purely economic stance – was used against giving women the same rate of pay for the same work as men.
I’m not saying you’re a Tory, just that the Tories were not in favour of the NMW and gave a lot of dodgy reasoning. Which sounded to my ears like “Fuck the poor”.

It need not lead to unemployment rising when the economy is growing, Mr S. Pill. Employment can still grow and unemployment fall as it did until the recession. The numbers in employment did reach impressive levels. The issue is employment would have been even higher. Look I’m not arguing against the NMW, just explaining that both sides have a point. Less employment is created with the NMW than would be the case without. However, we have more social justice and those on the NMW have more disposable income which in turn supports demand. Moreover, some people say when they introduced the NMW it was set so low it was already below the market wage. As I said, it all depends where you stand on the equity efficiency trade-off.

The difference in a recession and for years after it the pendulum in the labour market swings brutally in favour of employers. Equalising the NMW for all youth age groups now would I suspect lead to bad outcomes for those under 22. Generally they have less experience than those over 22 so employers will employ less of them if the price is the same.

The same mentality was evident at the introduction every anti-discrimination law, particularly from employer organisations. “My customers won’t want to be served by a black person”: “Why should I employ a woman on the same rate of pay as a man?”: “Disabled people are a threat to health and safety, also less productive”.

Employment law allows employers to dismiss staff who are incapable already. This is about legislating against what many consider to be the last bastion of discrimination, opponents are as bigotted as those I refer to above.

I forgot to add that I used to be a member of the Labour Party. After eleven years of “New” Labour, a Tory PM is addressing an injustice experienced by thousands of workers each year. What’s the world coming to?