Oral Answers to Questions

Nick de Bois Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Steve Webb]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. In a world where people will be of working age for potentially 50 years, assuming that they will do a single job for their whole life is increasingly unrealistic. We need to do a great deal more to enable people to transition into less physically demanding jobs. We have recently piloted something called the mid-life career review, which starts people thinking much earlier about what they might be able to do later in life and other courses of action that might be open to them. We also need to challenge employer attitudes, which we are doing.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

Although unemployment in my constituency is down a welcome 35% and youth unemployment is down by 40%, unemployment among those over 50 has stubbornly not reduced by the same rate. Will the Minister therefore endorse and welcome Enfield North’s first online older employees forum, which we have set up, along with our older employees forum and jobs fair on 26 October?

[Steve Webb]

I am very pleased to hear about the activity in which my hon. Friend is engaged. We are not asking for charity as regards employing older workers, and we often find when we talk to employers that many of them get it already. They realise that recruiting and retaining older workers benefits both young and old in the work force, and we want to see a lot more of that.