So, early retirees are costing the economy 0.2% in GDP?

[Carthag]

Early retirees seem to be the latest scapegoats offered up for the dire state of our economy (I'm not one btw). It is apparently their fault that there is a shortage of labour, to the tune of 600,000. Apparently, if they weren't so 'selfish', by having planned ahead, worked hard & saved to achieve financial independence, then GDP would apparently be up to 0.2% higher.

What a crock.

Who's idea was it to keep kids in school or training until 18 instead of 16? How many does that potentially take out of the job market?

About 1.4 million, that's how much.

Whose idea was it to tell every kid they have the potential to be a top earning manager/lawyer/engineer (etc) and that menial work is beneath them? Hotels, shops, veg pickers are struggling for workers, doing work I would have been glad of at 16 or 17.

We all knew kids at school who had learnt all they could learn (or were willing to learn) at 14. After that it was just teachers struggling for 2 more years to keep them under control.

Clearly early retirees are the new scapegoats, to join private landlords and the self employed in shouldering the blame for the country's woes

um... it's more complicated than that.
Big labour market loss from people who hadn't planned to retire for years, but have decided to anyway.

If same people are voting against immigration (probably yes, demographically) then that's costing economy a lot.

GDP would be higher without Brexit

In many cases poor health is at the root of those choices

And once you lose at job over 50 it is hard to get another - not every 59 year old would be happy with Pub shifts and care work as both can be quite physical ( and see above about poor health )

What about all the people who work past retirement age? Mainly because they can't afford to retire fully.

Having children working as retail workers or other low skill jobs rather than in more skilled jobs doesn’t add to the economy

I expect GDP would have been higher without Covid and a war, but let’s blame Brexit

Its not blaming Brexit, it’s a FACT that Brexit reduced the GDP, estimates between 4-5.5%.

Estimates !!!!!!! Not actually facts, unfortunately how knows what would have happened without covid, war, and now looks like the start of another banking collapse or massive bailout with taxpayers money

I one knows for certain but informed estimates are quite fine

It's certainly bizzarre to try and pretend that because it's only an estimate it's utterly invalid

midgemadgemodg,
I hope you never take builders estimate as utterly fine,
where those estimates including a worldwide pandemic, a war, etc or just guess work, that can be interpreted to suite

Funnily enough I had a builders estimate for a 2 story extension - I made choices based on the various estimates and was happy with the result

I don't quite understand what you are trying to say ?

Are you implying that the people making the estimates are deliberately lying ?

Or are you saying that because you couldn't do the sums no one can ?

Or?

The UK had the best performing economy in the G7 until 2016 (Financial Times March 2023).

I wonder what happened in 2016….

We had people at work thst after covid and the lockdowns re evaluated their plans and retired slightly earlier than they had originally planned pre covid

Yes it does, someone has to do these jobs, remember who was on the list of key workers during the lockdown

I think the larger number of older people who took themselves out of the workforce is more to do with Covid, maybe also providing elements of informal childcare, plus the amount of government policies shoring up house prices and the incomes of older voters so more can afford to stop work. The lack of younger people in the workforce and the generally trashed/slow growth economy is much more about Brexit.

I'm 54 and hoping very much i might be able to stop work at 60. There are a lot of people like me, some cannier ones who calculate they can stop at 55. Why the hell wouldn't you if you could.

I decided to retire at 61 when covid started because I hated having to wfh, I was winding down anyway and working part time (3 days) but it was covid that was the main reason for retiring early or I would have carried on part time until state pension age

If we are talking about the politicians who get a wage for life after ruining ours and retire early too, then I think they are losing us much more than 0.2% and we should get rid of the payments to the whole lot!
No other profession gets such a luxury and most people actually have a clue of what they do for a living, which cannot be said of the current political leaders governing us all.

People who have decided to retire out of choice rather than for health reasons will have made a considered decision to do so. They are likely to have the financial means to be able to retire and are highly unlikely to suddenly decide to return to work after a few years in retirement. I understand that this is mostly about stemming the exodus of high earners from the NHS due to pension limits which is sensible. It also helps out very wealthy individuals to put the maximum into their pensions which is a Tory vote winner. This is very unlikely to make any significant difference to most people and it will not result in lots of retirees returning to work.

The thing is those retirees don't care. If they've worked all their lives and are comfortable then they are free to do what they want with their lives and money.

I expect some of them would rather 'cut their cloth' rather than going to some crap nmw job on zero hours or return to the workplace where it's all about the employer. Going to work is expensive - cost of fuel, clothes for work etc. meanwhile some not working 'seem' to get quite generous benefits which those in their 50s never had.

We're not at war.

Why not retire early if you can afford to do so?

I always intended finishing work at 60 and made provision to do this.
The situation then changed and the chance to leave at 57 became available so I took it.

We have plans and luckily the financial security to see them through (not MN "rich", just comfortable from a lifetime of work, saving & investing for our retirement).
I enjoyed my job and was good at it but I had no desire to stay there any longer than I needed to. I don't miss it and definitely look upon us as fortunate to be in this situation but we both worked hard so I think we deserve it.

Blaming early retirees is a load of cobblers. In the 1980s lots of us were encouraged to retire early to make way for younger workers. There were financial inducements to do so and I did. Never regretted it but the government lost lots of capable managers who might have prevented some stupidities. The obvious reasons for the UK's economic mess are poor intervention by the Bank of England, Brexit, Covid and Putin's war not to mention Tory economic incompetence by Truss amongst others.

Why not retire early if you can afford to do so?

Every time I read what retirees get up to, I don't like it. Definitely like work more.