AGE discrimination at work is an “ongoing and significant problem” which could be costing the economy billions of pounds a year, a report published today claims.
Research by the National Audit Office found employment rates among the over-50s were more than 5 per cent lower than the average for younger age groups, and estimated that the disparity was costing the economy between £19 billion and £31 billion a year in lost output, reduced taxes and increased welfare payments.
Up to one million of the 2.7 million older people who were not working want to find jobs, but they are held back by discrimination, health problems, low confidence and out-of-date skills, said the report.
The Government promised to outlaw age discrimination at work by the end of 2006, but draft regulations have been delayed. The NAO, however, said it understood ministers remained “fully committed” to the legislation.
Almost 70 per cent of people between the age of 50 and retirement were in work last year, but this was “significantly” below the overall employment rate of more than 75 per cent among working-age people, said the report. With an ageing population, Britain will increasingly depend on older employees for its economic vitality, the report warned.
Advertisement
The report, Welfare to Work - Tackling the Barriers to the Employment of Older People, comes amid a debate about whether the retirement age will have to be put back in order to fend off a pensions crisis and avoid skills shortages.
Alan Johnson, the Work and Pensions Secretary, told the TUC yesterday that the Government was not planning a new retirement age of 70. Launching today’s document, Sir John Bourn, the Auditor General, said the employment gap affecting older workers had been narrowed by 1 per cent last year, but more needed to be done.
The NAO found that the Government’s New Deal 50-Plus scheme for older workers had helped 120,000 people into work at an estimated cost of £270 million.