Over-50s job losses soar as coronavirus bites - with still more to come

Redundancies among over-50s increased by 240 per cent last year

The total rose from 35,000 at the start of 2020 to 121,000 by the end of the year, according to an analysis by Rest Less, which offers advice to people in their 50s and 60s. Redundancy rates for the over-50s rose from 4.2 per 1,000 employees in January to March 2020 to 14.4 in September to November, the report said. The study found that 25 to 34-year-olds had been hardest hit by redundancies so far. Stuart Lewis, founder of Rest Less, said: "With businesses suffering in the wake of the pandemic, we knew redundancies were going to be high as furlough was originally scheduled to end last October. "Even though redundancy rates among the over-50s have never been this high, our concern is that there is worse still to come with more than 640,000 over-55s still on furlough. "The biggest challenge for the over-50s is not redundancy or furlough rates, but rather it's what happens when talented workers in this age group move from paid employment to job-seeking status. "The recruitment process is where age discrimination bites hardest, particularly at this time when the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequalities in the workplace." The warning comes after experts said a lack of skills with digital work tools such as Zoom could be behind the rise in redundancies among the over-60s. Additional research by Rest Less said the number of workers over the age of 60 who were made redundant increased from 8,000 between April and June to 31,000 between July and September - a percentage increase twice that of any other age group. Tej Parikh, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, said that despite the furlough scheme, redundancies had risen during the pandemic and that it was concerning to see any age group particularly badly hit.

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/15/over-50s-job-losses-soar-coronavirus-bites-still-come/