Retirement age and youth unemployment

[RJRB]

Due to the mis management of pension funds,coupled with increased life expectancy,many people are going to have to work into their late 60s and early 70s.

On top of this anyone is now entitled to work beyond the age of 65.

I don't know the answer but I believe that this is not the direction that we should be heading.

There needs to be vacancies within companies to take on new employees as school leavers and graduates ,and also opportunities within companies for promotion.

Without this there is stagnation ,particularly if the upper tier of management are are turned 60.

In my experience there is little fire in the belly ,having graduated to and enjoyed a senior position for a number of years,and this leads to resentment down through to the lower positions who need advancement to keep their interest and improve their prospects.

For other older workers who have had tough physical jobs,most just can't hack it over the age of 60 because they are just worn out.

I know life expectancy has increased and pensions or benefits have to be funded.

I would prefer this funding is given to those who have worked for 50 years and to give real working opportunities to the young.

We are storing up a lot of problems with the younger generation who are needed to bring future prosperity.

[Norseman]

Due to the mis management of pension funds,coupled with increased life expectancy,many people are going to have to work into their late 60s and early 70s.

On top of this anyone is now entitled to work beyond the age of 65.

I don't know the answer but I believe that this is not the direction that we should be heading.

There needs to be vacancies within companies to take on new employees as school leavers and graduates ,and also opportunities within companies for promotion.

Without this there is stagnation ,particularly if the upper tier of management are are turned 60.

In my experience there is little fire in the belly ,having graduated to and enjoyed a senior position for a number of years,and this leads to resentment down through to the lower positions who need advancement to keep their interest and improve their prospects.

For other older workers who have had tough physical jobs,most just can't hack it over the age of 60 because they are just worn out.

I know life expectancy has increased and pensions or benefits have to be funded.

I would prefer this funding is given to those who have worked for 50 years and to give real working opportunities to the young.

We are storing up a lot of problems with the younger generation who are needed to bring future prosperity.

 

I have worked for the same company for the past 25+ years and recently through no fault of my own had my final salary pension stopped in favour of a cash balance scheme which basically means, pay more in get less out just because my employer took an 8 year payment break and its advisors didn't see the fact that people are living longer. How can they justify this? they have changed our contracts without informing us, is this illegal? Whereas I'm not in a senior position this affects me more than ever as I had hoped to retire at 62 and yet now I'm looking at late 60's instead. This doesn't help the younger generation at all and just worsens the situation as we need to work longer. Then again our previous government spent the entire 5.5 billion pension pot hence the new government are having to bring in these new pensions yet no-one seems to be bothered about the fact the pensions pot has gone and more about these new measures.

 

As for the youth in our society national service needs to come back = no more thugs, chav's and whatever else and a better moral standing, maybe then employers will see the benefits to employing younger people.

 

On another point just because you have a degree doesn't mean to say you can do the job in practice, experience is a far better tool than a piece of paper yet employers don't often see this. Who would you employ? a young person with a degree in either a relevant or non relevant subject or a young person with a hands on 5 year apprenticeship?

 

I have more respect for someone who has worked their way up from the bottom to a senior postion and can relate to them with regards to respect and the fact they have done the same or similar job to me rather than someone who has a bit of paper and cannot do the role they are employed to do because they have no practical skills or people skills.

[Janus]

 

On another point just because you have a degree doesn't mean to say you can do the job in practice, experience is a far better tool than a piece of paper yet employers don't often see this. Who would you employ? a young person with a degree in either a relevant or non relevant subject or a young person with a hands on 5 year apprenticeship?

.

 

That is certainly not what i hear. The young potential employees usually tell the story that most employers are wanting experience. over qualifications.

[Anna B]

Due to the mis management of pension funds,coupled with increased life expectancy,many people are going to have to work into their late 60s and early 70s.

On top of this anyone is now entitled to work beyond the age of 65.

I don't know the answer but I believe that this is not the direction that we should be heading.

There needs to be vacancies within companies to take on new employees as school leavers and graduates ,and also opportunities within companies for promotion.

Without this there is stagnation ,particularly if the upper tier of management are are turned 60.

In my experience there is little fire in the belly ,having graduated to and enjoyed a senior position for a number of years,and this leads to resentment down through to the lower positions who need advancement to keep their interest and improve their prospects.

For other older workers who have had tough physical jobs,most just can't hack it over the age of 60 because they are just worn out.

I know life expectancy has increased and pensions or benefits have to be funded.

I would prefer this funding is given to those who have worked for 50 years and to give real working opportunities to the young.

We are storing up a lot of problems with the younger generation who are needed to bring future prosperity.

 

I agree.

 

I love the way the fact that most of us will need to keep working till we drop has been dressed up as an 'opportunity'

 

I would not want to work past 65 for the simple reason that I'm knackered, as are many people of that age. (And I don't smoke or drink.)

 

Neither do I appreciate people being told they 'must save more for their pension.' I'm sure they would if they could, but people's finances are having to stretch in every direction and they have little extra cash to spare for a pension. Besides in the current situation would you trust a bank to look after your money?

 

There are people on here who think the current recession has somehow passed them by. They have a serious 'I'm all right Jack' attitude. But sooner or later they will be touched by it in one way or another.

 

It's coming for them from both ends.

[chem1st]

Increasing the retirement age is the right thing to do.

 

The only problem is, it is being increased for the youth, whom are not set to retire for decades. Not the retirees whom haven't funded their pensions to the degree needed to pay out to those that are retiring now. The crisis is here and now.

 

The way out of this crisis is to cut pensions and lower taxes for the youth.

 

As youth unemployment falls and retiree poverty increases, increase tax upon the (now working) youth and then increase pensions.

 

Only production and the sharing of the wealth produced fairly matters.

 

As it is, there is not enough work to go around. There is not enough demand. There is not enough production. - Stimulate demand for the have nots (the youth), therefore stimulate production, therefore crate jobs for the youth. Then the extra wealth produced can be shared amongst all.

 

I suppose you could give extra purchasing power to the elderly, but with them owning the means of extracting produced wealth, that would only seek to reinforce the problem.

You would have to ban them from working, or tax profits more heavily.

 

If you let a youth grow two potatoes then take them both away your not going to have any in the first place. If you let him grow two and keep one, everyone might have a potato.

[RJRB]

As I stated,I don't think that increasing the retirement age is the right thing to do.It might be a necessary evil because of the mess that has been created in the last decade.

Many pension funds were in surplus and were then plundered with the collusion of the finance industry and highly paid actuaries,who failed to advise caution .

Getting your first job,promotion an advancement has always been down to the continuous replacement of an ageing work force at all levels.

We are creating a log jam of senior employees,many of whom no longer wish to be working,and this damages the vitality of any company or organisation.

I feel so sorry for the school,college,university leavers,but also for those in their fifties or so who see the finishing line disappearing into the distance through no fault of their own.

It's impossible to make up pension losses at this age .

[1978]

There are so many issues involved.

 

If we go back to when the Pension age was set at 65 very many workers left school at 14 and had worked for over 50 years before they got a state pension. Very few went on to 18, and even fewer to university. But apprenticeships were very common.

 

Today everyone stays at school until 18, and we seem to want 50% to undertake a 3 year university course, with many taking a gap year on top, and often additional degrees as well. With a 65 retirement age very many will work less than 45 years.

 

On average workers today would have a working life 5 years shorter, but their average life expectancy is probably 5 years longer!!

 

To bridge that gap I can see why the pension age is being increased, and 68-70 is not unreasonable - statistically. All that education and medical care has to be paid for, and there are fewer years to do it.

 

The difficulty is so obvious. Many jobs cannot be performed as well by an older person as someone of greater physical fitness. That's not to say that an older person can't do many jobs better than a younger person - experience and knowledge can be a big advantage in many fields.

 

It's all too easy to generalise and appear to be discriminating against any group, and ageism is no exception.

 

In some jobs it's possible to move to a less senior position as old age approaches. Any successful company should know that combining youth with experience is a challenge worth undertaking. Each should learn from each other, reinvigoration of the older worker, the younger person learning from the other's experience.

 

Except it doesn't often work like that. Performance management systems mean all have to work to the same standards of output, little regard being built in for the disparity. Too often a less experienced worker gets more done, but more is done wrong leaving the more experienced to put it right.

 

Of course there are many exceptions to this rule:-) In my youth I knew it all. I now know I didn't. After a lifetime of clerical employment I'm now training to complete manual tasks - as a volunteer. I know I don't know it all and it's a challenge being taught by those who are all younger than me - for both them and me!

 

That's not least because they know I've been used to giving instructions and tend to question too often! Older workers are a right pain to manage!

 

But if we want to get the economy moving forward we have to engage all parts of society in a multitude of ways, full-time, part-time and voluntary.

 

We'll get nowhere with masses of able bodied, and fairly able bodied, people drawing unemployment and sickness benefits. We'll also have difficulty if we have masses of younger people undertaking courses of education which occupy years of time for very little benefit on completion of the study.

 

And we'll do a whole lot better if more folks don't start thinking they can retire at 50 - although that idea seems to be almost dead by now! The over 50's are a vital ingredient in the economy and there's no reason why many of us can't do some form of useful work until our 70's or 80's if we want to.

 

What I can't calculate is how we make this all fair. We all know of people we think are idle. We also probably know someone we think is mad for continuing to work into their 80's. Most of us think we've paid our taxes and NIC and deserve a good state pension - but we don't want to see those who are genuinely unable to work starve. Define genuinely!

 

When I drive around our city I see many derelict areas, much graffiti, and pot holes! In the country there are many collapsing dry stone walls. Driving down the main roads and motorways the bushes and trees are festooned with plastic bags, the ditches and grass littered with bottles and cans. And worse!

 

National service? Get older and younger unemployed into area teams to tackle all this. Just being regularly active will get a work ethic going and make the individual more employable.

 

Self employment scares most of us to death. From an early age we expect to be found a job. That applies more strongly in this area than in most of the south east and is part of the reason for our high rates of unemployment. If your parents ran a business it's more likely you will yourself. Far too little is done to encourage this sort of enterprise. I suppose that's hardly surprising given the self perpetuating educational system run by staff in fairly secure long term employment themselves. Probably the biggest growth industry of the last 40 years.

 

Didn't I mention apprenticeships? 50 years ago most left school at 15 and 16, and few stayed beyond 18 for university. Very many of us may not have undertaken formal apprenticeship schemes, but carried on with further training, often in our own time at night school, or on day release courses.

 

We won't solve the problems on SF, that's for sure. The answers will be found in many places - and some may be in parts of what we did in the past. History isn't all bunk.

[MikeDaMouse]

Hi i am 20 years old and i think that the problem with the youth is that most of us are wasting money on universities to get POINTLESS pieces of paper after 5 years of paying extortionate prices & leaving us with huge debts.

Or we are laying about feeling sorry for ourselfs and getting Mum and Dad to pay for everything.

 

In my opinion the best way is to get any job and not think that the job is benith you.

 

I am not proud of this but i got expelled from school when i was 14 and my dad said to me ''you arnt sitting at home so you are comming to work with me or getting a job''

since then i have allways held a job.

 

I worked for my dad for 4 years Building and Roofing then got a job at our local Chip shop (peeling potatos) for about 8 months....

Then the manager of a local supermarket offerd me a job shelf stacking and said that he thought i had potential, I have now transfered shop's and been promoted to a Supervisor & keyholder & my new manager is currently training me up to be a juty manager within 6month's.

Also i have saved up enough money to start my own buisness at the start of aprill.

 

Sorry to ramble on but there IS job's out there IF the youth can be botherd to serch for them....

Its just that about 90% us youth havnt got any ''get-up-and-go'' and want to lay about ''chilling'' day in day out.

 

That's what i think the problem is (i might be wrong though:))

[cuttsie]

There are so many issues involved.

 

If we go back to when the Pension age was set at 65 very many workers left school at 14 and had worked for over 50 years before they got a state pension. Very few went on to 18, and even fewer to university. But apprenticeships were very common.

 

Today everyone stays at school until 18, and we seem to want 50% to undertake a 3 year university course, with many taking a gap year on top, and often additional degrees as well. With a 65 retirement age very many will work less than 45 years.

 

On average workers today would have a working life 5 years shorter, but their average life expectancy is probably 5 years longer!!

 

To bridge that gap I can see why the pension age is being increased, and 68-70 is not unreasonable - statistically. All that education and medical care has to be paid for, and there are fewer years to do it.

 

The difficulty is so obvious. Many jobs cannot be performed as well by an older person as someone of greater physical fitness. That's not to say that an older person can't do many jobs better than a younger person - experience and knowledge can be a big advantage in many fields.

 

It's all too easy to generalise and appear to be discriminating against any group, and ageism is no exception.

 

In some jobs it's possible to move to a less senior position as old age approaches. Any successful company should know that combining youth with experience is a challenge worth undertaking. Each should learn from each other, reinvigoration of the older worker, the younger person learning from the other's experience.

 

Except it doesn't often work like that. Performance management systems mean all have to work to the same standards of output, little regard being built in for the disparity. Too often a less experienced worker gets more done, but more is done wrong leaving the more experienced to put it right.

 

Of course there are many exceptions to this rule:-) In my youth I knew it all. I now know I didn't. After a lifetime of clerical employment I'm now training to complete manual tasks - as a volunteer. I know I don't know it all and it's a challenge being taught by those who are all younger than me - for both them and me!

 

That's not least because they know I've been used to giving instructions and tend to question too often! Older workers are a right pain to manage!

 

But if we want to get the economy moving forward we have to engage all parts of society in a multitude of ways, full-time, part-time and voluntary.

 

We'll get nowhere with masses of able bodied, and fairly able bodied, people drawing unemployment and sickness benefits. We'll also have difficulty if we have masses of younger people undertaking courses of education which occupy years of time for very little benefit on completion of the study.

 

And we'll do a whole lot better if more folks don't start thinking they can retire at 50 - although that idea seems to be almost dead by now! The over 50's are a vital ingredient in the economy and there's no reason why many of us can't do some form of useful work until our 70's or 80's if we want to.

 

What I can't calculate is how we make this all fair. We all know of people we think are idle. We also probably know someone we think is mad for continuing to work into their 80's. Most of us think we've paid our taxes and NIC and deserve a good state pension - but we don't want to see those who are genuinely unable to work starve. Define genuinely!

 

When I drive around our city I see many derelict areas, much graffiti, and pot holes! In the country there are many collapsing dry stone walls. Driving down the main roads and motorways the bushes and trees are festooned with plastic bags, the ditches and grass littered with bottles and cans. And worse!

 

National service? Get older and younger unemployed into area teams to tackle all this. Just being regularly active will get a work ethic going and make the individual more employable.

 

Self employment scares most of us to death. From an early age we expect to be found a job. That applies more strongly in this area than in most of the south east and is part of the reason for our high rates of unemployment. If your parents ran a business it's more likely you will yourself. Far too little is done to encourage this sort of enterprise. I suppose that's hardly surprising given the self perpetuating educational system run by staff in fairly secure long term employment themselves. Probably the biggest growth industry of the last 40 years.

 

Didn't I mention apprenticeships? 50 years ago most left school at 15 and 16, and few stayed beyond 18 for university. Very many of us may not have undertaken formal apprenticeship schemes, but carried on with further training, often in our own time at night school, or on day release courses.

 

We won't solve the problems on SF, that's for sure. The answers will be found in many places - and some may be in parts of what we did in the past. History isn't all bunk.

Its ok saying that some can work until they are 70 or whatever but most people who have been in my trade [bricklayer] are knackered before the retirement age of 65 due to bad wrists ,Knees and backs.

This is true of most heavy manual jobs and i do not think that people who have not been involved in these jobs realise just how worn out your joints are after many years of repetitive lifting.

[Anna B]

Hi i am 20 years old and i think that the problem with the youth is that most of us are wasting money on universities to get POINTLESS pieces of paper after 5 years of paying extortionate prices & leaving us with huge debts.

Or we are laying about feeling sorry for ourselfs and getting Mum and Dad to pay for everything.

 

In my opinion the best way is to get any job and not think that the job is benith you.

 

I am not proud of this but i got expelled from school when i was 14 and i was lucky enough that my dad said to me ''you arnt sitting at home so you are comming to work with me or getting a job''

 

I worked for my dad for 4 years then got a job at our local Chip shop (peeling potatos) for about 8 months....

Then the manager of a local supermarket offerd me a job shelf stacking and said that he thought i had potential, I have now transfered shop's and been promoted to a Supervisor & keyholder & my new manager is currently training me up to be a juty manager within 6month's.

Also i have saved up enough money to start my own buisness at the start of aprill.

 

Sorry to ramble on but there IS job's out there IF the youth can be botherd to serch for them....

Its just that about 90% us youth havnt got any ''get-up-and-go'' and want to lay about ''chilling'' day in day out.

 

That's what i think the problem is (i might be wrong though:))

 

Well done, you have a great attitude and will probably go on to do well.

 

You're right there are a lot of kids who don't have your can-do outlook, but the fact remains there are more unemployed than there are vacancies at the moment, and the jobs there are aren't necessarily in the right place or for the right skills.

 

But nevertheless, I'm happy that things are coming right for you, and your story might inspire others to get-up-and-go. It's nice to hear from someone with such a positive attitude.

 

Good Luck!