Age Legislation

[Si Clik]

Primary age legislation comes in in October 2006. My sources indicate the Services WILL NOT be able to claim an exemption.

How will the following affect us all:

Retirement - Employers may no longer be able to set retirement ages for employees (unless justifications are provided, for example for purposes of health and safety)

A ‘default’ retirement age may be introduced (allowing employers to compulsorily retire employees at the proposed age of 70, but this is only possible if the UK government can justify it to the European Commission through employers’ evidence)

Recruitment, Selection and Promotion – should not be based on age unless the employer can justify doing so.

This is going to give us all a headache one way or the other. Cluttered promotion systems will get worse. Age limits on entry may be affected as the centre don't want to faffed justifing exemptions.

Comments please.



:hmm: :hmm:

[Impiger]

Si Clik I think you're well off beam here. When EU legislation on this subject was being discussed in 2000 ish the Forces won a dispensation. This was mainly because the Article of the Treaty concerned (or whatever they called it) applied to Age and Disability. Because we made a coherent case to be exempt on the disability bit we kind of got through the age bit as a bit of a free ride!

Don't think anything has changed.

[Pontius Navigator]

My one-star is by no means as positive about a service exemption. He is 48 and suddenly realised that 55 is only 7 years away and he is in no way ready for retirement.

A 2 star friend is in Brussels and extended to 57.5, he too would extend like a shot. With a 2 start pension in the offing it is clearly not money related.

Me? I passed go 6 years ago and feel quite ready to continue until I am ready to stop and not when they tell me to stop.

OTOH if my job stops then I guess I will too.

[Scud-U-Like]

Legislation aside, in common with the rest of the Western World, even the shrinking UK armed forces are going to have to adjust their employment policy, to take account of demographic trends. The older population is increasing, while the younger is decreasing. Attitudes to health, nutrition and fitness mean that a 55-year-old today is probably as fit and alert as a 45-year-old was during World War II.

[Si Clik]

Just to add to the comment above:

15 years ago the average age in the RN was about 24.

With no policy changes this has increased to 28.

Its worrying a lot of people and thier thinking about changing some age limits.

With this kind of legislation thier stuck with it!

[6Z3]

Average age? I'm sure it's much more than that. A mate at PTC tells me that the over the past 5 years the average age of pilots arriving on their first FL Sqn is 28.5.

Since govt policy is for 50% of the population to be grads, most of whom will take gap year(s) at some stage, the entry age the FL looks set to stay in the late 20's.