A combination of the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and poor retirement saving is forcing more and more people to work into their seventies, research has suggested, something that could pose a growing challenge for occupational health practitioners.
The study by Rest Less, a digital community for older workers, concluded that the number of people still working over the age of 70 has increased by 61% in a decade.
Rest Less found that nearly 280,000 men aged over 70 are not yet retired, compared to 176,000 in 2012. The number of women aged over 70 and still working had risen from 101,000 in 2012 to 168,000 in 2022.
This meant a total of 446,601 people over the age of 70 were in employment or self-employment in 2022, it argued, approximately 169,000 more than a decade ago.
While some of this increase is likely to be down to people being in better health for longer, and so more able to work into older age if they so wish, there are also a number of negative drivers behind the trend.
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The UK’s poor levels of pensions’ savings is one factor leading to more people having no option but to work into older age. Recent research by the website Unbiased.co.uk, for example, has found that a fifth (21%) of Britons have no pensions savings at all, other than the state pension. Even more worrying, 17% of over-55s said this was also the case for them.
While, on the one hand, the experience of the pandemic has led to something of an exodus of over-50s from the workplace, the volatility of the employment market since then has meant others have been forced to re-evaluate their retirement plans.
On top of this, the financial pressures of the cost-of-living crisis are meaning more people are having little option but to defer or delay their retirement plans. Alongside this, the UK’s state pension age will rise from May 2026 from 66 to 67 for those born after April 1960.
Stuart Lewis, chief executive of Rest Less, said: “We see many older workers today who are struggling to make ends meet amidst the cost of living crisis, with inadequate retirement savings meaning they must work in order to survive financially.”
The challenge here for occupational health practitioners is that rising numbers of older workers in the workplace will likely mean rising demand for healthcare support.
While a generalisation, older workers tend to take less short-term sickness absence but, when they are off, will often be absent for longer periods and may need more rehabilitation and return-to-work support.
Indeed, research from earlier this year by Rest Less highlighted that nearly 60% of people out of work because of long-term sickness or disability are aged 50 plus.
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Separately, nearly half (46%) of UK workers say they are now finding their work exhausting and 40% also feel emotionally frustrated with their employment.
The O.C Tanner 2023 Global Culture Report, which gauges the views of 36,000 business leaders and HR professionals around the world, including 4,653 in the UK, concluded poor work-life balance is putting more and more workers at risk of burnout and physical and mental exhaustion.
