What I wondered yesterday is why it’s the case that the over-50s filled over 50 percent of the new jobs created between September and November, 2007. After all, this level is pretty-much unprecedented (for the corresponding period in 2006, the over-50s occupied around 30 per cent of the new jobs created in the labour market). Are the over-50s just more keen to work than they were in 2006? Or are they responding to the tough fiscal times predicted for 2008?““The notion that people are still being hired as they head for what was once, laughably, called the retirement age should cheer us up. A workforce that brings together energetic Poles and hardy Brits of the war generation seems rather a good combination given the dearth of skills and any discernible work ethic among many school leavers …. It's also a hopeful trend, given that we're all heading for an extended old age. Average life expectancy for a professional man is 80, an increase of seven years since the 1970s. By comparison with previous generations, we're so many Methuselahs; we may as well work.”