Boost for Jeremy Hunt as over-50s start coming out of retirement
JEREMY HUNT’S campaign to get older people back to work has been boosted by early signs of a wave of “unretirement”.
The number of 50 to 64-year-olds preparing to get back to work rose sharply in the final three months of 2022, according to analysis of official data by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), as soaring inflation forced people to rethink whether they can afford to retire.
At the end of last year one in 20 economically inactive 50 to 64-year-olds said they would start looking for a job in the next three months – or 5.17pc of the total. This was a significant jump from the 3.84pc who said they would rejoin the workforce in the year to September and well above the pre-pandemic average of 4.48pc.
Xiaowei Xu and David Sturrock, economists at the IFS, said the data could be an early indicator of “a wave of ‘unretirements’.”
Mr Sturrock and Ms Xu said: “There are reasons to think that we might have reached a turning point, and that we might continue to see higher flows out of inactivity in the months to come.”
Ms Xu said: “If the return is triggered by the cost of living crisis, it is no cause for wider celebration – it is a response to people becoming poorer.”
The Chancellor has made efforts to get more people back to work a key focus of his Spring Budget on March 15.
The number of people out of work has surged since the pandemic, with more than a million taking early retirement. Mr Hunt has personally called on them to return to the workforce, saying “Britain needs you”. Data from the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey show that more than 10pc of over-50s who left the workforce since the pandemic are now thinking about getting back to work.
The inactivity rate among 50 to 64-year-olds is decreasing slowly, falling from its post-pandemic peak of 27.7pc last July to 27.1pc in December.
Ms Xu said Mr Hunt should use the Budget to encourage older workers to return to employment for more positive reasons than an inflation shock.