To wonder how people will find jobs in their late 60s?

[Notcontent]

i was just thinking about pension ages, prompted by the Waspi thread and also fact that I spend a lot of time worrying about my own retirement.

i know the pension age has to rise but at the same time I think it will create even more inequality. There will be people with private pensions who can retire at 55 and then those who can’t - and are likely to struggle to stay employed until they can get the state pension - which is likely to be 70 soon.

i my professional job there is an expectation that people retire at around 55. There are no people in their 60s. When I look at people employed in retail, etc I also only see people in their early 60s maximum.

how is someone aged 65 supposed to find a new job?

if anything, I feel like there is more ageism now than ever before. Particularly in relation to older women.

I would hire over sixties. Experienced, loads of life skills, great work ethic.

I was hired at 60 for my last job but I had temped with them for some time. I stayed for another 5 years

I've lost my typing speeds and I expect Excel and Word have had some upgrades but I expect I could do some temping if I needed to, probably get all the shitty admin tasks but needs must.

I have found quite a few permanent jobs from temping

Whoever said people would be "economically unproductive " if they retired at 65...
Ok, who do you think does the VAST majority of volunteering, community work, unpaid childcare so parents can work? That's right it's women over 60!
My mother helping with childcare in her 60s helped me to work. Couldn't have afforded to work full time and I wouldn't have grown my career, to contribute as a higher rate tax payer.
Just because a contribution is not directly paid it doesn't make it economically unproductive.

I think part of the expectation of retiring early arose during the decline of so many industries in the UK during the 70s and 80s. Those tended to be industries where there were good pension schemes and people were offered enhanced benefits to retire early when an organisation was downsizing/closing or redundancy pay outs that bridged the gap to their pensions. We therefore ended up with a big group of early retirees.

After that early retiring became much more of a norm.

During 'austerity' earlier this century, a massive group of older employees also left the public sector during downsizing as budgets were cut because it was cost effective for them to do so with redundancy packages. I know a whole swathe of older people pretty much disappeared overnight in the networks I worked in.

That trend may change now and we might start seeing more older people in the workplace again - not just in retail. Until, of course, the next transition or recession or whatever, when, once again, it will be an easy option to shed older staff who can be incentivised to retire early rather than force redundancies.

In my former working life in education we had a lot of early retirees working as consultants as and when they wanted. But that was people who had early retired from senior roles or specialist areas. The charities and community organisations would also probably collapse without early retirees and older pensioners.

I would have thought plenty would.

A sensible woman in her Sixties is less likely to be hit upon by a leery husband than when she was in her twenties.
The Royals seem to prefer older Nannies, I thought.

{I know a woman who was a live in Nanny when she was much younger, and the amount of hassle she got from husbands was embarrassing}

I'd love an older nanny! My kids are a bit older though, I think I'd be really keen to hire an older nanny for hybrid housekeeper roles so I could have help with the house during school hours. Don't worry, you'll find another role.

My Mum worked in supermarket until she retired at 66, My Dad left his FT position at retirement age and got a P/T job in a supermarket until he was about 70. I have seen many older people working in shops and various other jobs.

One of DH uncles 74 is working p/t as a delivery driver for a pharmacy.

He started after he finished his career job at 67.

68 for me - born end of ‘78! I will have been teaching. I’ll have been teaching 47 years by the time I retire. The same age as I am now. God, that’s depressing!

Do you teach maths?

My DM is 70 and works 45 hrs one week and 49 the next - she is a carer for people with learning disabilities. She will not give up until she drops! At 60 I will be taking my NHS nurse pension, downsizing and retiring if I don't die before then.

From my experience this age group doesn’t last 5 minutes.

Have no idea why employers decide to employ these over the older ones.

No, why?

My sister got a full-time job in retail, temporary to start with for the Christmas rush, at the age of sixty.
She’s seventy now and still in the same job though three days a week now, not full time.
They were very glad to keep her as her interpersonal skills are excellent.
She’s very fit and active and almost never unwell.

I am retired, and worked until retirement age. (private sector)
I have to admit, that the last 5 years of the job, I 'kept my head down' so to speak, with the intention of not ruffling any feathers, in order to stay there until I retired.
My DH was made redundant age 60 and did not find another job after that, so I felt it was more important for me to keep working.
So, we have the experience of both; my DH unable to find a new job after age 60, and me, already in a job, maintaining the status quo.
( I have advised my adult DC, that they will find it hard to find employment over 60, and although they have many, many years to go, that they should be prepared and sort their finances accordingly).
PS, my DH was supported by me, until he finally reached pension age.

I got made redundant at 63 at the start of lockdown. I found another job and since then have moved again (they approached me) and have been promoted in my current company. I was a bit concerned when I was made redundant, and I was definitely subject to age discrimination in a couple of roles I applied for, but I would say that if you have the skills they need decent employers don’t care.

I’m worried about this. Really don’t think I’ll be able to continue my fast paced job into late 60s but doubt I can afford to retire early. I’m ignoring the problem and trundling along.

I also worry about the reduction in available volunteers as the 65-75 age group are the main contributors.

I do wonder about this. 58 and feeling a bit tired but can’t afford to retire until mid 60s. I suppose I could sell up and move out of London but then my three young adult children would have nowhere to live!
Having children older means many of us still have uni aged and dependent children and mortgages until 60s. We are tired!
I would hate to have to find a new job at my age so will just stay on in Civil Service. It’s a shame for the young colleagues who have promotion blocked by us old buggers.
ps CS pensions are fine but the pay is poor. I don’t know any single CS who could afford to retire at 60. After 25 years my pension would be 17.5K. Enough with state pension but not on its own.

That's not my experience unfortunately. My current bosses even questioned my age and if I'd manage with young kids and I was in my late 40s then. I've even seen adverts asking for under 30s nannies, even if they're not supposed to specify that. The older I've got, the harder it's been for me to get a job even though i've got years and years of experience.

Unfortunately you are right about the slimy dads coming on to their nannies/au pairs, I've seen it so much over the years. Some of these girls were just teenagers, some left their jobs to get away from the creeps and I know one who actually had an affair with the dad. They had a newborn baby and whenever the mum went out, the dad and nanny were shagging, but I digress.

I'm 69 and still working, but in an organisation I've worked for in various roles for 17 years.

I'm very aware that it's taking me longer to learn new stuff though, and working in welfare rights there's new stuff all the time.

I think it's going to be very hard for a lot of people, especially people who've always done jobs that are more physically demanding. Physically I'm in much worse nick than mentally, there's no way I'd be able to do a physical job now.

I became very ill and retired from the nhs at 60. My pension was tiny and I didn't get my state pension for another 6 years. Luckily DH is still working and hopes to keep going until 75 if his health remains ok. Health is always the worry because you never know when you will lose it.

I am a TA. I am in my 60s, so still have several years before I can retire. I am in the LGPS but that is aligned to state pension age. Last time I looked, eve retiring two years early will cost me so much of my pension that I really have to continue until I'm 67. Whilst mentally I am more than up to the job, physically I am exhausted. I have severe arthritis which causes me a lot of pain and some mobility issues. My SLT are very good and make a lot of allowances for the difficulties I have, more than I could reasonably expect really, but even so, I do wonder how on earth I'm going to cope with the next few years. By the time I can retire, I will have been working for over 50 years with only a short break when I had children.

I think you might take the “grandma” role for a family, although families I know who’ve hired a nanny in their late 50s/early 60s, didn’t do this for preschoolers, but for the wrap around care and holiday care for school aged children. One I did think was the kids granny for ages, she didn’t stand out at the school gate because so many doing pick up were grandparents.

someone older, who knows children well, who isn’t really needed to do physical work with preschoolers but more picking up from school, taking to swimming lessons /music lessons /other after school activities (that wrap around school clubs often mean kids of 2 working parents miss out on), would be in demand from a lot of families.

During the pandemic the over 50s were greatly in demand. When it was a case of anybody with a pulse will do because there weren’t very many people available.
It was bargain basement for awhile get 40 years of experience for the price of a 25 year-old.
Presumably that will continue with the birth rate dropping. Theres less and less graduates every year. Aside of the ones that they con into coming to the UK universities charge three times the amount and then the poor souls have to try and find somebody to sponsor them on a graduate Visa which they won’t.

Oh yeah, I know I could easily get a school pick up job as they're so in demand and I would actually like to do that as i get older (I do love looking after babies and toddlers though) I work full time at the moment, but I live on my own, so no one to share bills/rent with etc, so it's unlikely I'll be able to afford to do that.