In today’s economic climate retirement can be seen as quite a daunting experience with a great amount of uncertainty. In order to help individuals that are soon to reach retirement age the government has recently proposed to lift the cap on the mandatory retirement age which means that for some retirement may actually never arrive.
For others it gives them a chance to increase their overall pension pot to give themselves a better standard of living post-retirement. However, according to the latest report by the Office of National Statistics, many people are actually being forced to retire early by their employers.
The ONS report that between September and November 2010 there were around 1.5 million people that retired below the age of 65, representing around 40k more than the previous quarter. These individuals could potentially lose out on building up their pension pots, which in turn could have a detrimental impact on their retirement plans. One possible reason for companies targeting these groups of individuals is because they typically would be the ones on higher salaries and therefore more of a burden on the organisation.
However, the new government legislation should help to alleviate this situation as elderly workers gain more rights to work until they feel they are ready for retirement. This is really important as retiring early can have devastating consequences to someone’s financial security post-retirement.