Career experts round on Jeremy Hunt’s remarks on ‘golf course’ over-50s

theguardian.com:

Employment experts have hit back at the chancellor’s suggestion that over-50s should get off the golf course and return to work to help tackle the UK’s labour shortages.

MPs on the business, energy and industrial strategy committee were told that while millions of older people want to work, they often have long-term health conditions, care responsibilities, or are struggling to find a flexible job.

It followed comments made by Jeremy Hunt last month that over-50s could make an “enormous contribution” to the UK.

“You can have an enormously rich life by continuing to make a contribution to the economy. It doesn’t just have to be about going to the golf course,” he told the Times.

Lucy Standing, a co-founder of Brave Starts, which supports mid- and late-career professionals, told MPs: “Do I feel [older people] are busy on a golf course out of choice? I would say absolutely not. I would say to Jeremy Hunt, if you want people to get off the golf course, or out of the yoga room, or drinking coffee, or whatever it is he thinks we’re doing, I would suggest why doesn’t he start leading the way.

“There are a number of barriers: lack of flexible jobs, outdated recruitment practices … there are no programmes for career changes or people wanting to re-enter the workplace, or very few of them. There is no career guidance or support for people who have no idea what they want to do next, but they do want to work, and there’s no role models or blueprints for how to do it.”

Also addressing the committee, Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies, said the number of people aged 50 to 65 who say they have left the workforce primarily for early retirement was now slightly lower than it was before the Covid outbreak, at around 1