Concern among employers, including those with workers in communications jobs, over the scrapping of the default retirement age (DRA) is “based on false assumptions”.
That is according to the Institute for Employment Studies, which reveals that fears that people working beyond 65 will only cause problems are unfounded.
Many businesses and organisations have suggested that longer working lives will make it difficult for companies to stay in control of their staffing changes, with others concerned as to how long an elderly person might stay in their job.
Helen Barnes, principal research fellow at the Institute for Employment Studies, said that the changes, which are set to come in in 2011, will likely only delay retirement by a few years in most cases.
She said: “Employers sort of think that if people don’t go at 65, they’re not going to go ever, which is not what people do.
“If you look at the people who work after the state pension age, they tend to do it for two or three years. The ones who work for another ten or 20 years are really quite unusual.”
