United Kingdom: Older Workers Filling New jobs

According to an article by Andrew Taylor, the Employment Correspondent for Financial Times, official statistics show that "more than half the jobs created in the past year were filled by people above the state pension age." He reports that various employers’ organisations attribute the rise in the number of working older people to increasing financial pressures created by pensions shortfalls and a growing willingness of employers to take on older staff.

Sam Mercer, director of the Employers’ Forum on Age, said that employers faced with skills shortages were also more prepared to hire older people who were physically and mentally fitter than previous generations. Large supermarket chains, such as Tesco and J Sainsbury, in particular, had made an effort to employ older staff to reflect the balance of society at large and an ageing population that provided many of their customers, she said.

Source: "Older workers take most new jobs" Financial Times (April 12, 2006)