Britain’s over-50s are paying the heaviest price for Labour’s workers’ rights overhaul, with the number of older jobseekers unable to find work climbing by 22 per cent since 2023, according to the latest figures.
Just shy of a million workers aged 50 and above are currently locked out of the labour market, the latest Labour Force Survey data shows, with the age group consistently registering the highest rates of redundancy across the workforce.
Some 917,000 people aged 50 to 66 are unable to find a job, rising to 996,743 once those aged 66 to 70, many of whom remain keen to work despite being eligible for the state pension, are included.
Industry leaders have laid the blame squarely at the door of the Employment Rights Act and the Chancellor’s increase in employer National Insurance contributions (NICs), arguing that the combined cost has made firms markedly more cautious about taking on new hires, particularly more experienced and therefore more expensive ones.
“Older workers, likely on higher salaries than their Gen Z colleagues, have borne the brunt of businesses reassessing their hiring strategies,” said Kevin Fitzgerald, UK managing director at jobs platform Employment Hero.
Alex Hall-Chen of the Institute of Directors echoed the concern, pointing to the Employment Rights Act, the rise in employer NICs and successive increases to the minimum wage as a triple blow that has dampened employer appetite for risk.
Although the Act’s provisions apply to workers of all ages, several measures hit older employees disproportionately hard in practice. The scrapping of the cap on payouts for successful unfair dismissal claims is widely expected to prove costlier in cases involving over-50s, who tend to command higher salaries and whose tribunal awards are typically calculated as multiples of pay.
The Act’s expanded right to request changes to hours or location, particularly where employees are juggling health conditions or caring responsibilities — is also likely to be invoked more frequently by workers in their 50s and 60s, many of whom are supporting elderly parents or managing their own long-term conditions.
Compounding the picture are structural shifts beyond Westminster’s control. The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence across white-collar roles and the lingering hangover from the post-Covid jobs downturn have together hollowed out mid-to-senior positions that older workers have traditionally relied upon.
Lyndsey Simpson, founder of career-coaching platform 55/Redefined, said the fallout from losing a senior or well-remunerated role in one’s 50s can be devastating and long-lasting.
“That’s why people are ‘age-scrubbing’ their CVs. They remove dates, hide early roles and play down seniority because they know age can work against them before they even get an interview,” she said.
Dr Andrea Barry of the Centre for Ageing Better warned that the scale of the crisis among older workers is now comparable to the much-discussed plight of young people not in education, employment or training (Neets), yet receives a fraction of the attention.
“The Government is right to invest in solutions for the current youth employment crisis, but the labour market is in crisis at both ends of the age range and on a similar scale,” she said.
For SME employers already grappling with rising payroll costs, tightening tribunal exposure and the spectre of further regulation, the temptation to play it safe at the recruitment stage is proving difficult to resist, and it is Britain’s most experienced workers who are bearing the cost.
Read more:
Over-50s frozen out: Labour’s workers’ rights reforms backfire as older jobseekers hit record high