EHRC suggest retirement age should be scrapped

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has today issued a report suggesting that the official retirement age in the UK should be scrapped. The commission believes that employers in the UK should be incentivised to maintain older staff within their workforce and utilise their experience and skills into later years. However, is there an undercurrent to this particular suggestion?

While is no doubt that the EHRC is acting in the best interest of the older workforce of the UK, if the official retirement age was scrapped this would be a major benefit to the UK government which is set to see massive pension funding issues in the future. It is no secret that the UK population is increasing at an unsustainable rate and that people are now living longer due to developments in medicine and an overall improvement in the standard of living.

These factors alone mean that the UK state pension funding requirement is set to balloon in the years to come, along with the cost of many other benefits paid out by the UK government. So an increase in the retirement age, or an abolishment of the retirement age, may well be a godsend for the UK authorities!