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Companies should allow their older staff to choose their own hours and work from their second homes in Spain, according to Neil Carberry, Chief Executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC). Carberry told the Daily Telegraph that, in an labour market where mass retirements have led to labour shortages, offering perks like this would incentivise workers not to take early retirement.
Citing ONS data which shows that there are 500,000 fewer workers aged 50 to 70 than there were prior to the pandemic, Carberry said: “In some cases, you may say they can work from Spain for two months. That kind of flexibility is going to be really important for companies to navigate this labour market.”
The Great Retirement
The phenomenon of older workers deciding to take early retirement during the pandemic has become known as the ‘Great Retirement.’ It’s a reversal of what was happening up until the pandemic, when people were working until later in life than was the norm in previous decades. The Centre for Ageing Better points out that, in the pre-COVID workforce, nearly one in every three workers was over 50 years old.
The problem with the 'Great Rretiement', as the Centre for Ageing Better also points out, is that “there are not enough young people flowing into the labour market to fulfil its requirements on volume alone.” Furthermore, there are personal costs to leaving the job market early; retirees can be left feeling isolated, without purpose and financially much worse off. “Many will not be simply choosing retirement out of a desire to stop working: there is strong evidence from our projects in Manchester and the West Midlands that older workers feel rejected by the labour market and struggle to find a way back to work,” the Centre for Ageing Better website states.
