An aging workforce could lead to labour shortages… new guidelines to retain workers past age 65 is a ‘soft’ approach to the problem, Minister says
New guidelines for employers to retain staff who want to continue working past age 65 is a ‘soft’ approach to labour shortages stemming from our aging population.
This from Jason Hayward, Labour & Economy Minister.
Responding to our questions today, he says there are no plans to legislatively increase the private sector retirement age – at least not yet.
He says that some other jurisdictions have made it mandatory for employers to discuss options with retirement-age employees, to see if they can continue to work. However, Government doesn’t want to start with a hard policy approach, he adds, as it has long been the local workplace culture for people to reach retirement at 65.
Rather, Minister Hayward encourages employers to explore alternative approaches to their employment models concerning older workers.
The new policy guide, released yesterday, lists steps for employers to implement age-inclusive strategies to benefit from keeping experienced staff on board, address labour shortages, and potentially reduce pressure on the contributory pension fund.
He notes that Government was able to “successfully increase the retirement age for public service employees from the age of 65 to 68, but we haven’t seen the same measures put in place as it pertains to the private sector.”
“That will pose a problem to the labor supply in our workforce if we continue down that particular trend.”
WATCH the interview above…
