Recession has badly affected the over-50s

This post has been removed because it contravened our guidelines.

I'm 53 and would love to have the extra time to travel on my motorbike, and enjoy myself before I get too old.

BUT, as many of us these days have probably changed jobs several times in the last 20 or so years, and have therefore never built up a significant redundancy package with our current employer, we fear redundancy above all else.

Long gone are the days of working for the same employer for 40 years and redundancy meaning a comfortable time until retirement?

Nick (in Wiltshire) is over 50
I am leaving my job at the end of the month. I was recently invited to a ‘Disciplinary Interview’ for serious misconduct for not performing to standard. I might have made a successful rebuttal, and Unite felt I had a good ‘case’. I’m not sure that I would have improved my health and I feel the next or subsequent ‘Disciplinary Interview’ would have been enough for me. I resigned with my health, sanity and reputation
I am the oldest here by about 10 years and at least 20 years older than the average.
life's a buzz?

Hi Nicola - Age or any diversity challenges the market dot com as you are always gonna be too young and inexperienced or too old and over qualified and that, as you say, is a euphamism for too expensive in a techno-dependent environment that no longer requires skilled anything just machine / process operaters .......

Exactly the same thing in tut last century in engineering or manufacturing when functional skill's or experiential knowledge no longer needed to operate the computer controlled whatev-eeer process just now catching up with everyone else as we stampeed toward the "hour-glass" economy.

Self-employment only escape from treadmill of modernity and sure an ex-navy guy must have some interest / hobby that could become a product or paid for service to suppliment 'quality of life' in terms of adding value ?

One of my friends mothers has turned looking after a severely handicapped son into a small business after twenty five years of battling with the system and having to keep & maintain good records into offering to a PA / facilitater service to others providing a sort of 'life-coaching or just de-clutter package' with an initial 'clutter clear' followed by organising, filling and a good sort out as starter for ten with regular 'service visits' to make sure being kept up to date.

Another friend has always been facinated by water and has assembled or should i say sourced and recycled scrap into a mobile towable drilling kit and is now making money finding ground water for farmers and has never been happier....

I say stuff'em all and go do your own thing..........

Of course employers are going to be ageist in a time of recession - they have to pay an older, more experienced person considerably more than some teenage who they can then train to exactly the standards they want. My husband (who is over 60) doesnt even have to sign on any more as the Job Centre have told him that regardless of his employment status, they will pay his stamp so what sort of incentive is that to anybody? He receives a small Royal Navy pension and no unemployment benefit because of it. He desperately wants to work but keeps getting told that he is too old, hasn't got any computer experience and doesn't drive. What life is that for somebody - what a way to make a man feel that he is only fit for the scrapheap!

I believe we are in a dilma of the country wanting everyone to work on to 65 or 67 or even 70 - but employers actually wanting to get rid of some of their older workers to give them a better age profile and more flexible workforce. The trouble is that the statutory redundancy packages don't really encourage the 60+'s to go; the best age for that appears to be about 54-55. Statutory redundancy and (company and national)pension ages are not synchronised at present - in fact it is a mess!