A recent BBC documentary, The Town That Never Retired, sought to show the effects of increasing the state pension age by putting retirees back to work. Although the results were entertaining, they need not have bothered. Away from the cameras, unprecedented numbers of older people are staying in work. Since the start of the recession that began in 2008, the number of 16-to 24-year-olds in work has fallen by 597,000. Over the same period the number of workers over the age of 65 has increased by 240,000.
The greying of the British workforce dates back to around 2001, since when the proportion of older people working has nearly doubled. But it has accelerated since the start of the recession. There are several reasons why. Happily, people are living longer and healthier lives, which makes staying in work less daunting than it was. Less happily, low interest rates, a stagnant stock market and the end of many defined-benefit (固定收益) pension schemes make it a financial necessity. And changing attitudes, spurred by rules against age discrimination, are it easier than ever.
Most older workers are simply hanging on at the office: 63% of workers over state pension age have been with their employer for more than ten years. Over two-thirds of them work part-time, mostly doing jobs that they once performed full-time. A big advantage is that they do not pay national insurance contributions—effectively a second income tax on younger workers.
According to Stephen McNair, director of the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce, this flexibility explains why older workers have not suffered so much in the slump. Instead of slashing the workforce, as in previous recessions, many firms have halted recruitment and cut working hours. At small businesses in particular, keeping on older workers is cheaper and less risky than training replacements. Over half of workers over state pension age work for businesses with fewer than 25 employees.
Christopher Nieper, who owns David Nieper, a women’s wear manufacturer based in Derbyshire, prizes his semi-retired workers, who can be employed at short notice and do not need to work full-time to survive. Retired machinists can fill in if there is a surge in orders; former sales advisers can work as part-time consultants. As his competitors have moved production abroad, depleting the pool of trained labour, retaining older workers and their skills has become even more important.
There is scope for the older workforce to expand. Workers over the age of 50 who are made unemployed find it harder to pick up new jobs, which could mean that more oldsters want to work than are able to. That would be good. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog, reported on July 12th that an ageing, unproductive population is the biggest long-term threat to Britain’s economic health.
Data from the OECD, a think-tank, shows that employment rates among workers approaching retirement age are split in Europe, with old workers hanging on best in the north. Government credit ratings follow a similar pattern. That Britain’s ageing workforce more closely resembles Germany’s than Italy’s could prove the country’s salvation (拯救). It can be concluded from the last paragraph that ______.