“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.”As a follow-up to my post yesterday on the number of new jobs being occupied by the over-50s, I should point out that there’s a good piece on the matter by Melanie McDonagh in today’s Times. McDonagh rightly argues that an increasingly grey component of the labour market is a positive development:
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?
Peter Hoskin
The greying labour force

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