Older workers in the labour market: 2012

Office for National Statistics has published a short (PDF 5pp) report on the issues for the labour market which result from people working beyond state pension age.

The document starts by providing information about a podcast explaining the story which uses audio commentary and graphical animations. You can find this here on the ONS YouTube channel.

The video shows that:

1. The number of people of state pension age and above in employment has nearly doubled over the past two decades, from 753,000 in 1993 to 1.4 million in 2011.
2. Older workers are far more likely to be self-employed than their younger counterparts: 32 per cent compared with 13 per cent.
3. Around two-thirds of the older workers are part-time but they are generally doing this shorter roles with the same employer. Eight in every 10 of older workers have been with their employer for five years or more.
4. Men working later in life tend to stay on in higher skill roles while women tend to stay on in lower skill roles.
5. Just over a half (51 per cent) of older workers are in small organisations of fewer than 25 employees.
6. Across the country, London and the South East have the highest percentages of people aged above state pension age in employment and the North East has the lowest.

The PDF provides a link to a chart in Excel (XLS) format.

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