Record numbers of people who are old enough to retire remain in work

A record number of people who have passed the normal retirement age are still in employment, government figures have revealed.

Office of National Statistics figures show that 1.2 million people who could be retired are working – one-tenth of the retirement-age population.

An increase of 13,000 female workers aged 60 or above in the three months to the end of last year was entirely responsible for the record being broken.

Two-thirds of post-retirement-age workers are now female. The number of males working beyond the age of 65 remained stable in the last quarter of 2006.

Experts said that the record number of people staying at work when they could retire showed the paucity of the pensions they were collecting. They also said it was a warning for younger people who expected to retire early.

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Paul Macro, head of defined contribution pensions at Aon Consulting, said: “According to our recent research, most UK employees expect to retire before the state retirement age.

“However many employees, especially the young, are simply not saving enough to provide a comfortable retirement income.”