back to article Extension of flexibility 'may help solve retirement problems'

The Government has restated its plans to extend the right to request flexible working to all employees. Rather than resist the change, though, employers could see it as a chance to help deal with another issue – the removal of the retirement age. Workers approaching 65 might well use flexible working requests to cut down their …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't understand

    The general population is against the raising of the pension age yet business is afraid that when someone reaches that age they will want to continue working. Now either the public are guilty of a mass double bluff or business has nothing to worry about.

    Personally, first chance I get I'm retiring.

  2. JaitcH
    WTF?

    (Neanderthal) Business groups have argued against the change

    It is hardly as if the UK would be breaking new ground with this and other countries experiences have shown many positive results. No person should be forced to retire just because some number comes - and this includes pilots.

    Older people have experience and, usually, patience, they tend to be reliable (and turn up on time), they don't need time off because a child is sick, their wisdom can be shared with younger newcomers. They can act as role models and mentors.

    Minorities in other cultures treasure the knowledge of their elders instead of throwing them on the slag heap younger folk try to learn from them.

    Older workers can be holiday or sick day relief. They can help out when there are need for skilled temporary workers when order books are overfilled.

    As for the employer groups, their cousins across the Atlantic can fill them in and bring them out of the Ice Age.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @JaitcH

      The problem is that businesses don't necessarily want to get rid of everyone who hits retirement age, it is just that they want to keep the right to be able to do so, if they chose, with no possibility of any legal comeback.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    @Neanderthal Business Groups

    Trouble is, if you let enough experienced people hang around long enough, they have a tendency to remember that this week's strategic suggestion from the very expensive Big Five consultants in red braces was tried fifteen years ago and brought the business to its knees.

    Just sayin, like.

    Trebles all round anyway.

    1. Chemist

      "..this week's strategic suggestion from the very expensive.."

      In my area it was ~every 10 years.

  4. lIsRT

    just don't collect the info

    It would be better if employers also weren't allowed to request or record a worker's age / date of birth (if the Government wants it, they can get it themselves).

    I suppose the same should apply for gender, or anything else that isn't permitted to be used as a basis for discrimination.

  5. Joe Harrison

    Should really be a win-win

    Everyone's different, some want to pack it all in asap whereas someone else might fancy carrying on for a bit. If I were an employer I would want a mix of young people (energetic and easy to take advantage of) and old folks (more relaxed, battle scars taught them to avoid simple mistakes grads might sleepwalk right into.)

    @Chris W - remember "raising of pension age" is completely different from "raising of retirement age"!!!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @Joe Harrison

      >remember "raising of pension age" is completely different from "raising of retirement age"!!!

      That is an interesting point. Would it mean people working beyond the pension age would be able to collect a pension and a wage packet?

      My belief is that pretty soon pensions will be means tested so anybody who has spent all their life working will get sod all and be expected to live off their own earnings while the great unwashed will continue to be mollycoddled until their dying day.

      1. Britt Johnston
        Pint

        pension plus wages?

        The Swiss way is to reduce the national pension if you retire early (-25% at 60) and increase it similarly if you put off the date and keep contributing, so no double payout. The steep curve comes from the change applying to estimated life, not contribution years.

        The company or own pensions could be similar, and are anyway moving towards output being related to input. Other tricks to watch for would be employers no longer contributing after 65, and rampant inflation.

        No have-your-cake-and-eat-it icon, will beer do?

      2. David Beck

        Pension+Work

        I'm doing this now. Working part-time and collecting an occupational pension. The US allows you to work and collect Social Security (SS) but if your retire "early" you have earning limits that reduce the SS payments. Not a problem in the UK as there is no concept of retiring "early". My biggest problem is how to fill out a form that lists your working status. Almost all of them treat "retired=not working=receiving pension" when as has been pointed out the three are connected but hardly equivalent.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Grenade

    "pensions ... moving towards output being related to input."

    No they're not. Not from a worker's point of view anyway.

    Money purchase pensions or whatever those evil things may be called are merely an excuse to move money from the overworked underpaid workforce in the sticks into the pockets of the underworked overpaid spivs in the City. With money purchase there is no absolutely guaranteed relationship between input and output, as far as the workers are concerned.

    Rather than money purchase pensions you might as well go down William Hill once a week with 20% (or whatever) of that week's wages and put it on horses or dogs or whatever; with them at least it's obvious the same week that you're on the way towards penury in retirement, and you know who's getting how much of a cut of the takings, rather than waiting ten years to find your pension is worthless ("endowment mortgages" => "money purchase pensions", for those with reasonably long memories).

    The workers carry all the risks, the spivs get all the bonuses. Nice.

    1. Sandra Greer
      Grenade

      Translation into Amurikan

      We used to have Defined Benefit (pensions) from employers. They were supposed to be putting money aside and investing it for the benefit of the employees.

      What happened is that the value of the investments went up a lot during the bubble, so the employers neglected to add any money to the pot. When investment went tits-up, so did pensions.

      They changed it to Defined Contribution (401 K). That's the equivalent of "money purchase pensions". When they went tits-up, so did this type of pension. All we have left is Social Security, and that is being threatened all the time.

      Your Ponzi Scheme on the hoof! Anything that depends on the ever-expanding good will of the market is doomed by maths.

      Your conclusion remains totally correct. "The workers carry all the risks, the spivs get all the bonuses. Nice."

  7. David Hicklin Bronze badge

    Final Salary Pensions

    One point not considered so far is what happens to someone working part time (thus getting a reduced salary) and thier pension based on Final salary once they retire?

    Hopefully it will be as others have pointed out that pension and retirement ages are different beasts and will be kept apart and your pension based on your last full years salary

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