Retirement age employment law ‘needs to be clarified’

Posted 07/07/2010

A charity spokesperson has urged the government to clarify the employment law surrounding retirement age as soon as possible.

Michelle Mitchell of Age UK said that new plans to phase out the current statutory retirement age for men and women could throw the plans of many people who are approaching the end of their working lives into disarray.

“Allowing employers to force people to retire not only leads to wasting older workers’ skills and expertise, but also undermines the government’s attempts to extend working lives,” she warned.

Ms Mitchell said the government should now set a clear timetable if it wants to phase out current pension ages and should also produce guidelines for staff and employers to minimise confusion.

A recent study by Aviva found that although 31 per cent of people would like to stop working between the age of 61 and 65, 29 per cent think they will have to work until they are between 66 and 70.