Jeremy Hunt in plea to early retirees: ‘Britain needs you’

Expotter

Today Jeremy Hunt said : “So, to those who retired early after the pandemic, or haven’t found the right role after furlough, I say: Britain needs you. And we will look at the conditions necessary to make work worth your while.”

Would anyone here consider unretiring and returning to work, what would it really take to make it worthwhile?  

EdSwippet

"We will look at the conditions necessary to make work worth your while" is an open admission that it currently is not. (And whose fault would that be?)

It's a "no" from me. :-)

Pat38493

Expotter said:

Today Jeremy Hunt said : “So, to those who retired early after the pandemic, or haven’t found the right role after furlough, I say: Britain needs you. And we will look at the conditions necessary to make work worth your while.”

Would anyone here consider unretiring and returning to work, what would it really take to make it worthwhile?  

Conditions to make work worthwhile - maybe having a competent government and feeling like the tax you pay would be used in a worthwhile manner?

Jeremy Hunt always seemed to me at first glance to be quite a sensible fellow, so why he is still in the current iteration of the Conservative Party is beyond me - I guess it pays the bills.

I am not yet “retired” but hopefully in the next couple of years.  Certainly I might consider taking up further activities, but I won’t be making the decision based on how much revenue it will generate for HMRC - might even be voluntary work - the whole point is to be able to do what I want rather than what I must.  If it comes with pay, that’s just a side bonus.

westv

This subject was brought up here several weeks ago. I see they are still trying.

hazel_davey

Britain needed the nurses etc. during the pandemic. What gratitude was there, beyond a clap once a week? Claps didn't stop nurses having to use foodbanks.
Pre-Pandemic & Brexit they were trying to get people to retire early, to 'stop being so selfish' and free up jobs for younger people. 
Bottom line: ignore them and do what suits you. There will be no gratitude and as soon as it no longer suits them, you'll be dumped off again.

Arthurian

"Two Soups," anyone?

hugheskevi

Personally, I have to all intents and purposes retired early at age 45. I might go back to work briefly in my public sector role, but only whilst selling a house in London to move away to retire - if I am living there, I may as well work.

Whilst there are many non-financial aspects to such a decision, the financial aspects are:

1. I left my final salary DB scheme to lock-in a higher past salary, which gets inflation adjusted to calculate the pension. If I had not left the scheme, many years of below-inflation pay increases mean the higher past years would have started to drop out of the equation. That is the right decision to avoid a significant reduction to the value of the pension, but it means my remuneration level is eroded.
2. A very significant real terms pay cut in 2022/23 due to wage growth lagging inflation
3. After years of reductions and freezes to the Lifetime Allowance, I have a decent risk of exceeding the Lifetime Allowance just based on my existing pension savings. For many years I made significant pension savings to avoid all or most of higher rate tax, but that is no longer viable.
4. Even before this year, take-home pay had been eroded by something like 15% in real terms. The higher inflation is going to take that to well over 20%.
5. There have also been other reductions to T+Cs since 2010, eg: redundancy terms reduced, standard hours increased, number of days of leave reduced, pension scheme replaced with an inferior scheme, and pension contributions increased.

Currently, I am traveling down through the Americas. I spend less on traveling than I would spend living in London, even not taking into account the recent big utility bill increases. Council Tax had increased significantly in my area, whilst services were either slashed or changed to being charged for outside the Council Tax regime.

In fairness though, the Government has taken measures which are most likely to persuade me back to work - not least the decline in the value of the pound (last time I travelled it was over 2:1 against the dollar, but got very close to parity just when we set off), as well as increasing cost of living (partly related to decline in value of Sterling).

Anonymous101

I'll be very interested in any idea's they come up with for making it worthwhile. I suspect it would need a mixture of carrot and stick. The government typically being much more comfortable with the stick approach for PAYE types.

daveyjp

Does he know what 'retired' means?

The last 30-40 years have in general been good times for those who have been in paid employment, especially when compared to the previous 30 years.

I accept there is a huge issue of age discrimination in the workplace and support should be given to anyone in their 50s who wants to work, but can't even get an interview because of their age.

However blaming people for doing well and cashing out before an arbitary age is reached for the economic crisis isn't how you encourage them back to work!

Expotter

Anonymous101 said:

I'll be very interested in any idea's they come up with for making it worthwhile. I suspect it would need a mixture of carrot and stick. The government typically being much more comfortable with the stick approach for PAYE types.

A good place to start would probably be a rethink of the Lifetime Allowance and IR35 rules, that might encourage some to stay in work for longer, but not enough for me though.

Anonymous101

Expotter said:

Anonymous101 said:

I'll be very interested in any idea's they come up with for making it worthwhile. I suspect it would need a mixture of carrot and stick. The government typically being much more comfortable with the stick approach for PAYE types.

A good place to start would probably be a rethink of the Lifetime Allowance and IR35 rules, that might encourage some to stay in work for longer, but not enough for me though.

Very much carrot territory there. Whilst I'd like to see those types of incentives I was thinking the actual measures would be further reductions of LTA and raising of state pension age with perhaps some ISA or tax relief restrictions thrown in as an attempt to force people back to work.