DWP publishes statistical information about older workers

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On 11 January, the Department for Work and Pensions published Older Workers Statistical Information Booklet.  Older workers in this context are those aged 50 to 64.  The key findings are:

There are 21.0 million people aged 50 and over in the UK.  Of these 11.2 million are “older workers”, i.e. aged between 50 and 64, accounting for 28.0% of people age 16-64.

• 64.5% of older workers are in employment.  This is lower than the employment rate for people aged 25 to 49 (80.0%) but higher than for those age 16-24 (50.9%).
• Over the last two years, older workers have been negatively affected by the recession.  There has been a 1.1 percentage point drop in the employment rate and a 1.9 percentage point rise in the ILO unemployment rate*.
• ILO unemployment* is lower among older workers (4.9%) compared to those younger than 50 (8.9%).
• Older workers are more likely to be long-term unemployed.  44.0% of unemployed older workers have been unemployed for longer than one year, compared with 30.6% of those under 50.
• Older workers are more likely to work part-time than their younger counter parts, i.e.  28.1% in the case of older workers compared with 21.9% for 25-49 year olds.
• Older workers have spent on average 13.7 years in their current employment, compared with those below 50 with an average of 6.3 years.
• Older workers have a high number of people with no qualifications.  17.7% of older workers report themselves as having no qualifications, compared with 8.6% of those under 50.
• Inactivity rates among older workers are higher than among those below 50.  32.2% of older workers are inactive compared to 20.4% of those below 50.
• Of those claiming Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance, 48.5% are older workers.

* The ILO unemployment rate is measured by the monthly Labour Force Survey and covers persons who are unemployed and either actively looking for a job, or waiting to start a job in the next two weeks.

Further information:

Older Workers Statistical Information Booklet

Tags: DWP, Information about older workers, Recent Payroll News

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 13th, 2011 at 18:39 and is filed under DWP, employment, Pensions, retirement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.