Early retirement unlikely for most older workers in Rocky

| 18th Nov 2014 7:31 AM
Rockhampton truckie on the long haul to retirement

PLANNING an early retirement?

You may want to think again if new research released today holds true.

A Galaxy Research study reveals about 27% of Rockhampton’s 16,207 residents aged over 65 can expect to be working into their 70s.

The study found that one quarter of us wanted to retire as early as possible, but 27% would be forced to work longer due to dwindling finances.

And 42% of the 1800 people surveyed said it would be hard to cope doing their jobs at 70.

Managing director of Capricorn Investment Partners David French believes people should be working for as long as they can and start planning their finances in their 40s.

“For the good of society people need to keep being productive until they’re not able to,” he said.

“It’s obviously going to be pretty difficult for some people who have manual jobs and it’s natural for people of that age not to maintain the same amount of strength but people need to keep in mind that we are living a lot longer these days; the average age of death for baby boombers is 92 now.

“Although it might be nice to retire when you want, it would be better to work for as long as you can and earn money to support yourself for when you physically can’t work any longer because the government pension accessibility age will keep progressing to 70.”

Mr French also believes people should be starting to think about their future no matter what age they are.

“People in their late 20s are starting to buy their own houses which is great,” he said. “But people in their 30s and 40s need to get really serious about saving and their superannuation because the government isn’t going to be standing behind you as much as they did before.”

WORK, WORK, WORK

The Rockhampton region has about 16,207 people aged over 65.

25% of older people want to retire as early as possible.

27% will be forced to work into their 70s due to money problems.

42% say it will hard to cope doing their job at 70.

40% of people want to keep working because it’s good for their health.

Source: Galaxy Research; University of Adelaide Public Health Information Development Unit

Source: News Mail Bundaberg

1298 total views, 1 today

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,