Soaring rise in job losses for the over-50s

Redundancies among the over-50s have soared in the past year, leading to calls for targeted support for the age group, says a new report.

There were 107,000 over-50s made redundant between last November and January 2021 – an increase of more than 70,500 or 195% year on year, the Rest Less study said.

The redundancy rate of over-50-year-olds is now higher than all other age groups at 12.8 per 1,000 employees.

Rest Less, which gives advice and help to older people, said its study also found there were an estimated 1.3 million over-50s on furlough at the end of February 2021 – 28% of the total furloughed workforce of 4.65m.

Stuart Lewis, founder of Rest Less, said: “While there are reasons to be optimistic about the economy starting to open up, it’s clear that businesses are far from out of the woods yet, with many still struggling to survive and the level of redundancies remaining high.

“The extra extension to the furlough scheme has stemmed the flow of redundancies for now but redundancy rates amongst the over50s remain stubbornly high and are the highest of all age groups.

“With an estimated 1.3m workers over the age of 50 still on furlough, there is a very real danger of a tsunami of redundancies amongst workers in their 50s and 60s when struggling employers are required to increase their contribution to the furlough scheme from July.

“This is of concern to all of us, as previous research has shown that once unemployed, workers over the age of 50 are two and a half times more likely to drift into long-term unemployment than their younger counterparts.”