The national living wage encourages employers to recruit younger workers over older workers to cut costs in breach of age discrimination laws, argued Labour MP Holly Lynch during a parliamentary debate yesterday. Holly Lynch, one of Parliament’s youngest MPs, was speaking during a Westminster Hall debate on “Age discrimination and the national living wage”. She…

Ministers are considering changing plans to increase the state pension age to 65 in 2018 – and then 66 for all in 2020 – to protect a small group of women who face a sudden jump in their retirement age. The plight of the retiring women is the subject of a growing backbench rebellion with…

More than half of businesses want to see the default retirement age brought back as they fear they will otherwise lose their best, younger members of staff amid a lack of promotion opportunities. Some 54pc of firms would welcome the ability to retire staff automatically once they reach a certain age; a legal right which…

According to a statement by the department for work and pensions, the new Age Action Alliance brings together groups from across the voluntary, private and public sectors, including Age UK The launch was timed to coincide with Older People’s Day celebrations, and just before the scrapping of the default retirement age. The DWP statement said…

Life expectancy in the UK is on the rise, along with the rest of Europe, despite fears over the impact of obesity, a population expert has said. Analysing trends from the past 40 years, Professor David Leon credited a decline in deaths from heart disease for the continued rise. People in the UK are also…

Age UK Charity Director Michelle Mitchell comments on the three main parties’ manifestos. Labour In response to Labour’s manifesto published 12.04.10‚ Michelle Mitchell‚ Charity Director for Age UK said: “Four new announcements on employment‚ state pensions and healthcare‚ in addition to the recent commitment to a national care service will bring considerable benefits for older…

The recession has created a generation of over-50s who are condemned to long-term unemployment, disturbing new figures revealed last night. The number of older workers trapped in a spiral of joblessness has soared by more than 50 per cent in a year to the highest figure in a decade. A total of 170,000 job-seekers over…

Two decades since Ottawa’s first attempt to kill mandatory retirement, the Conservative government has managed to quietly overturn legislation that has for 30 years given federally regulated employers the right to force workers into retirement because of their age. The section of the Canadian Human Rights Act that permitted mandatory retirement was officially repealed by…

Older workers have done better during the recession than their younger counterparts, new figures revealed yesterday. Employment rates for senior citizens held up in the hard times and are now on the rise, while men and women are working longer before they retire. The South West has the country’s highest proportion of pensioners, with the…

A worker suffered age discrimination and was unfairly dismissed from his role in a leisure centre because his local authority employer wanted to avoid incurring his pension costs after he turned 50, an employment tribunal has found. Christopher Walsh, now 51, was made redundant by Tewkesbury Borough Council in September 2009. This week, Bristol employment…