I will be honest: my September column on the suggestion made by a German economist that pensioners should be enlisted into national service to alleviate staffing shortages, unsurprisingly, did not find universal favour. But the question of “older workers” (and we’ll come back to that term) surfaced again recently, at the New Statesman’s Politics Live conference on 19 November. We all know Britain has an ageing population; the key statistic to keep in mind is that while one in three UK workers is over 50, four million people in the 50-65 age bracket are “economically inactive”. An estimated £31bn per year is lost to the economy from people retiring before 66: that’s 50 per cent more than the entire policing budget.
So what can be done? My Politics Live panel – which consisted of the employment minister Diana Johnson MP, Nesta chief economist Tim Leunig, and Catherine Foot from the Standard Life Centre for the Future of Retirement – had some thoughts. Health is a massive factor (2.8 million people are out of work due to health conditions). So is education and training – anyone remember the Lib Dems’ 2019 idea of a “skills wallet”?
But beyond the obvious policy areas, the conversation became more creative and, well, philosophical. People fortunate enough to have the option of retiring early by definition do not feel the financial imperative to work, so they need to be encouraged in other ways. One of the biggest indicators that someone will leave the workforce before state pension age is low job satisfaction. Bluntly, if they don’t enjoy their job and can afford not to do it, they won’t.
Start with the basics: flexible working. There was, Leunig, 54, argued, no way he was going to cram himself sardine-style on to a rush-hour train if he didn’t need to. Allowing older workers an option other than the standard 9 to 5 would be an easy win. Bonus points for offering someone “a reverse zero-hours contract”: an agreement (more feasible in some professions than others) to work a certain number of hours annually.
As an audience member pointed out, such a set-up would benefit people with long-term fluctuating health conditions too. And also new parents struggling to balance work and childcare. And anyone caring for an elderly relative. And people working towards new qualifications outside a standard three-year degree. In other words, it might be an idea worth pursuing for all.
The same is true for Foot’s call for more schemes like Now Teach, the initiative to attract experienced (read: older) professionals from other fields to switch to a career in teaching. How about Now Social Care, or Now Probation, or Now Green Tech? I recall the government adverts of 2020 telling aspiring ballet dancer Fatima her “next job could be in cyber (she just doesn’t know it yet)”. The ads were rightly dropped for the crass message they sent about the arts, but the premise – that people should be able to retrain and switch careers at any age – was spot on. The genius of Now Teach is that participants aren’t being guilted into switching careers because they have no choice. They are actively being sought out. The rallying call – we want you and your skills – is a compelling one at any age. It’s also something we’d all do well to heed, given our working lives increasingly do not fit the work-in-the-same-job-for-45-years-then-retire-the-next-day pattern.
One point is age-specific, however. “Older workers” is a terrible description: it is patronising and off-putting, conjuring images of walking sticks and carpet slippers that are entirely inappropriate for discussions of quinquagenarians in the workplace. After canvassing for alternatives, a chap in the audience informed me that in Singapore, this cohort is known as “young seniors” – a term I think could catch on. If we want higher rates of workforce participation from the over-fifties, we need less rigidity about how we categorise people at different life stages, and more jobs that reflect the way we actually live. I don’t think my next job will be in “cyber”, but I’m open to the option – and I’ll take a flexible commute any day of the week.
[Further reading: Why community assemblies will change British politics forever]
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This article appears in the 26 Nov 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Last Stand