Never too old to work?

When times are tough and money is tight, people stay in work longer. It’s a trend in many western countries, including Bermuda. The issue of working beyond 65 was raised in Parliament recently and today, we take a closer look at the issue. 

Claudette Fleming, of charity Age Concern, said the recent human rights amendment act outlawing discrimination on the grounds of age did not go far enough.

Ms Fleming pointed out that there was no mandatory retirement age — but that many firms wrote a retirement age into contracts.

And she called on Government to introduce legistlation allowing for a higher retirement age than the accepted norm of 65 as soon as possible.

She added: “More and more people are challenging it because they have to work, with the way the economic climate is.

“We are seeing a lot of attrition and a lot of larger companies are offering packages which are very attractive. 

“Employees know they are going to have to retire anyway, so they take these packages and then go back to work at a lower level, if they can.”

Ms Fleming said that around 3,000 seniors already rely on some form of Government financial assistance to get by.

But she added: “It just makes so much more sense to have jobs available as opposed to making it a burden on the taxpayer, especially if people want to work.”

And she said that Government’s policy of shrinking the size of the Civil Service through attrition — non-replacement of some jobs due to people leaving or retiring — meant that it was not “incentivized” to keep people on after the usual retirement age.

Ms Fleming said: “Human rights legislation is good. I don’t have the numbers, but I’m pretty sure the number one type of age discrimination is through employment.

Raise retirement age

“The UK Government set a date to raise the retirement age [see panel]—  we should do that.”

Fred Hassell, director of the Bermuda Senior Islanders’ Centre at Admiralty House in Pembroke, said he also agreed with working past 65 – and the 62-year-old said he wanted to himself.

He said, however, that economic uncertainty had changed the mood of some seniors, who now wanted to take retirement at 65 and enjoy a substantial pension while they were still available.

Mr Hassell added: “If the economy was doing as well as it was a few years ago, I think this generation of baby boomers and young seniors would have a different point of view. They wouldn’t raise doubts about not officially retiring at 65.”

We reached out to Government for input on the issue but without success. 

• What other countries do

UK has record no. of seniors at work

In the UK, around a million people are already working past the usual retirement age of 65 — a record figure that is expected to grow by ten per cent a year, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

And the number of people opting for early retirement has plunged by nearly 90,000 in the last year.

A study by UK think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs also showed that, although retiring can provide a short-term boost, it appeared to trigger a long term decline in physical and mental health.

And the UK Daily Mail reported in February that more than 300,000 people aged over 70 in the UK still have a job — with many blaming the fact that they are too poor to stop working. 

Social Security

In the United States, while the normal retirement age for Social Security, or Old Age Survivors Insurance (OASI), historically has been age 65 to receive unreduced benefits, it is gradually increasing to age 67, according to Wikipedia.