Older Job Seekers Feel Forgotten as Pension Age Rises
A former advice worker, now 61 and unemployed for two years, says older workers face a system ill-equipped to support them.
A former debt and housing advice worker has spoken out about the growing struggle facing older workers who find themselves unemployed as they approach state pension age, saying he stopped applying for jobs after more than two years of searching with no success. Now in his 61st year, the man says the experience has fundamentally shifted his understanding of a problem he once observed only from a professional distance.
The letter, published in The Guardian, draws on a case the writer once handled as an advice worker — a woman in her late 50s who had spent her career as a hospital cleaner. Changes to the women's state pension age left her facing several additional years before she could retire, yet the physical demands of her job had become unmanageable and the prospect of retraining while managing her health felt overwhelming.
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The account highlights a structural gap in employment support: workers who are too young to retire but too old, in practical or perceived terms, to easily transition into new roles. Policy changes that raised the state pension age for women in the United Kingdom extended working life on paper without ensuring the labor market or welfare system could absorb those affected.
Employment challenges for the over-50s have drawn renewed attention, with workers in that demographic describing a sense of invisibility during job searches. The dual pressure of age discrimination and physical limitations leaves some older workers in a prolonged limbo — no longer earning, not yet eligible for pension benefits, and finding little traction in the job market.
Continue reading at Business | The Guardian.