What about older workers who wish to go part time?  It could create those highly sought after part time vacancies at higher levels in an organisation for women with children who wish to work part time or as a job share in positions that aren't below their skills and qualification level.  Thus reducing the pay and career penalty for women who have children. And older workers who need/want to keep working and have the skills and experience that is useful for an organisation, would still be able to contribute.  

I understand the need to get younger workers into the workforce too, but slashing older workers out won't do much good for that.

Ad astra per aspera

EUobserver / EU court accepts forced retirement due to age

The European Court issued its opinion after considering a case first brought before the British High Court by Age Concern England, a charity working for the well-being of older people, which argued that a British law allowing an employer to sack somebody because they reached the legal age of retirement - 65 years - was discriminatory.

"National legislation may provide, in a general manner, that this kind of difference of treatment on grounds of age is justified if it is a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate social policy objective related to employment policy, the labour market or vocational training," the ECJ ruled.

It said that "by their public interest nature," certain social policy objectives are "legitimate" and "distinguishable from purely individual reasons particular to the employer's situation, such as cost reduction or improving competitiveness."

The ECJ left it to the UK courts, however, to decide whether the UK legislation "reflects such a legitimate aim and ... whether the means chosen were appropriate and necessary to achieve it."

Age Concern saw the positives:

We're fighting on to scrap forced retirement say Age Concern and Help the Aged (05.03.09) | Age Concern England

European judges confirmed this morning that the UK government has to overcome a high hurdle to justify forced retirement and so will struggle to show that its national default retirement age of 65 satisfies European Union age discrimination rules when the case returns to the British courts.

Age Concern and Help the Aged have called on the UK Government to scrap the default retirement age immediately, by-passing the need to return the case to the High Court which would cause further delay to the right to work past 65 being clarified in law.

...

The ECJ addressed the issue of mandatory retirement in the Spanish case of Felix Palacios de la Villa v Cortefiel Servicios SA in 2007. In that case, which concerned mandatory retirement ages in collective agreements, the ECJ decided that the Spanish law could be justified. There were a number of significant differences between the facts and context of the Spanish and UK cases which meant that the outcome of the Age Concern case could not be predicted as a result of that decision. However, the questions on national retirement ages and the scope of the Directive that were referred to the ECJ in the Age Concern case (Questions (i), (ii) and (iii) above) were answered by the ECJ in the Palacios case In Age Concern's favour. It was decided that laws allowing mandatory retirement do fall within the scope of the Directive, and that any such law must therefore meet the justification test.

Flexible working is hugely important and under utilised.  As I mention elsewhere, a more open minded approach to introducing part time working in higher level posts would provide better opportunities for women with children who wish to work part time (and disabled people, and older people or anyone with caring responsibilities), all groups who are disadvantaged by the current ethos on the labour market and employment.

And our Governments should get a good kicking if they tried to reduce the pension age - who are we electing?  What kind of a job are we (socialists generally) doing to let people gain power and keep on shafting every vulnerable section of society?

I did raise a query of why now does the Government see the case for removing the default retirement age and perhaps that is due to Peter Mandelson's eyes shining with pound signs as he figures out a new way to squeeze more work and money out of people.

Ad astra per aspera

Well, let's say you cannot be employed for more than a certain amount in a year without forfeiting your rights to pension.

But when I put my flat to rent, one of the candidates was a 60+ consultant. He had created a company (of which he was the sole shareholder and employee), that did not pay him much any salary, only dividends...
His pension alone was more than the salary of any of the other candidates (and more than the combined salaries of most couples)...

I don't like that. He's working full time, he should not get a full pension. So, the flat did not go to him, but to a couple of more limited resources. I figured that they would find it harder to find one.

"The womb that spawned that thing is fertile yet"

£3.53 per hour for all workers under the age of 18, who are no longer of compulsory school age.

Wow.  That's terrible.  I was making more than that -- about 30% more, actually -- when I was hired at my first job.  And I was still at compulsory school age.

And that was ten years (and a fair bit of inflation) ago.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!