FOR 26 years Ann White, a poised 58-year-old, worked in the glazing department of Steelite International, a pottery firm. It was a repetitive, mundane job; the kind where you “hung your brain on a nail”, she says. Retirement may have seemed fairly attractive. No longer. Over the past five years Ms White has taken part in further training at work, gaining qualifications in maths, English and IT. She now manages the 11 cleaners who clear up the factory site, and would like to carry on working and learning for a while yet. “It’s been life-changing,” she says.
Britain’s workforce is greying. Between 1995 and 2015 the number of working people aged over 65 more than doubled, to over 1m. During the same period the number of workers aged 50-64 increased by 60%, to 8m. During the recent recession, while employment rates for youngsters fell, the number of silver-haired workers soared (see chart). By 2020 one-third of the workforce will be over 50.
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