Friday, July 02, 2004
There's life in them old bones yet
A striking characteristic of the current job market, says the latest Jobs Letter, is that new jobs have increasingly been taken up by older people. Employment for Kiwis 60 years and older has grown 138% between 1991 and 2003. In contrast, employment growth for people 15-39 years was 10%. The Department of Labour offers several reasons for this, including the rising percentage of the population in the older age bracket, the abolition of compulsory retirement, and the raising of the age of eligibility for superannuation. It also surmises that due to changes to the tertiary education funding, more parents are having to support their children longer, resulting in parents having to continue working after they might have retired.
A striking characteristic of the current job market, says the latest Jobs Letter, is that new jobs have increasingly been taken up by older people. Employment for Kiwis 60 years and older has grown 138% between 1991 and 2003. In contrast, employment growth for people 15-39 years was 10%. The Department of Labour offers several reasons for this, including the rising percentage of the population in the older age bracket, the abolition of compulsory retirement, and the raising of the age of eligibility for superannuation. It also surmises that due to changes to the tertiary education funding, more parents are having to support their children longer, resulting in parents having to continue working after they might have retired.
