Call to set up timetable to scrap statutory retirement age

Calls for a formal timetable for the removal of the mandatory retirement age have come after a national survey found workers in the UK wanted to work longer.

HSBC's Future of Retirement study, conducted by the Oxford Institute of Ageing (OIA), found that workers were happy to work into their 70s to ensure they had a more comfortable retirement.

The Employers Forum on Age (EFA) is now calling on the government to scrap its plans to push the national retirement age up by three years over four decades. Instead the EFA wants the government to take a leaf out of many employers' books by leaving retirement up to employees.

"We would be delighted to see the government this month, even this year, announce a timetable to phase out mandatory retirement," said EFA director Rachel Krys. "I would prefer that we didn't just increase the default retirement age, but removed it altogether.

"There is a lot of pressure on the government, employers and employees, that working has to be one of the solutions," she added. "People will have to work for longer, and we have to make sure is possible for people."

One-third of pre-retirement and four in 10 post-retirement respondents to the OIA survey preferred an increase in the retirement age to enforced private pension schemes.

The state pension age will rise to 66 in 2024, 67 in 2034 and 68 in 2044.