Survey points to older retirees by 2001

Early retirement due to difficulty in finding work will soon be a thing of the past.

According to a BIS Shrapnel report, employment problems faced by older people will disappear after 2010 after the baby booming generation starts moving into retirement

Early retirement due to difficulty in finding work will soon be a thing of the past.

According to a BIS Shrapnel report, employment problems faced by older people will disappear after 2010 after the baby booming generation starts moving into retirement.

“Currently there is high unemployment in the older age groups. They have been the first to be retrenched in the current round of cost and staff cuts,” say authors Dr Frank Gelber and Peter Jones

“But after 2010 employers will desperately need their older employees because there won’t be enough young ones. Older people will need jobs because they won’t have saved enough for retirement.”

While people will probably retire later in life, there is also a growing trend towards couples without children, the report says. At present couples with children outnumber childless couples by around three to two. However, by the year 2016 couples with families will have declined as a proportion of the population from 36 per cent to 28.3 per cent while childless couples will have increased from 25 per cent to 28.4 per cent.

The next highest growth rate will be in lone person households which will increase from 23 per cent to 28 per cent of the total.

The strongest growing section of the population is older couples living in households without children - the “empty nesters”. Households overall will grow by 1.5 per cent per annum over the next 15 years whereas “empty nester” households will grow by 2.6 per cent per annum.