Thursday, April 27, 2017

Workplaces suitable for older workers. You must be kidding

Whilst governments plays about with their spreadsheets and keep increasing the value of the cell marketed 'age people stop working' the reality in the workplace is totally different. Expecting people to generate an income and not have a state pension until they are 68 or 70 might balance the country's finances but it is pie in the sky thinking.

Take the Construction Industry as an example. Yes, I know it is something of an extreme because of the physical demands that it makes on people.

This data is taken from Construction News:

Nearly 30% of men aged 45 will have left the construction industry by the time they hit 50. The average for all other sectors is just 2%.

The DWP surveyed men aged 50-64 to find out why they left their last job. For those who had left construction, 46% said it was because of ill health. This was significantly higher than in any other sector, including other manual and skilled areas such as mining and agriculture. The average across all sectors for men retiring for health reasons was just 25%.

Unless we make the construction workplace more age friendly then the construction industry is going to have a huge labour problem. This age related attrition rate is horrendous.  Maybe, the next time a finance ministers thinks about extending the years of work they should spend a week working on a construction site? Dick Stroud

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