Source: The Australian

But for 13 per cent of workers aged over 45, life without a job is inconceivable — they plan to work until they drop.

An Australian Bureau of Statistics report also finds a discrepancy between older workers’ perceptions of how they will pay for their retirement and how retirements are currently funded. Just over half of Australia’s workers aged 45 and over who intend to retire say superannuation will be their main source of post-retirement income, with a further 26 per cent saying it will be a government pension.

But just 17 per cent of existing retirees say super is their main income source, with 66 per cent reporting it is the pension that pays the bills.

The ABS report Retirement and Retirement Intentions comes amid a growing debate on how to keep more people in the workforce as a means of alleviating pressure on the economy created by an ageing population. Employment Participation Minister Kate Ellis yesterday told a Melbourne conference the government remained committed to helping older workers stay in jobs as long as they wanted.

“Older Australians, with their skills built over a lifetime, make a massive contribution to our economy and our community, Ms Ellis said.

“We want to clear the way for older Australians to be able to stay in the workforce if they want to, and this means tackling issues such as age discrimination or looking at how workplaces, equipment and jobs can be modified to better suit older Australians.”

She released a report from the government’s consultative forum on mature age participation in the workforce, which has found age discrimination ranked second only to injury or disability as a barrier to older people finding or keeping their jobs.

The ABS report found more than a million people plan to ease into retirement through part-time work, and 653,800 never intend to retire.

“About 41 per cent (of full-time workers over 45) intended to retire from full-time work and then work part-time before retiring from the labour force,” the report says.

“Of these, 65 per cent planned to continue on with their current employer (and) 20 per cent intended to change their employer. The remainder did not know

Source: The Australian