More than half the jobs created in the past year were filled by people above the state pension age, according to official statistics.

The rise in the number of working older people reflected increasing financial pressures created by pensions shortfalls and a growing willingness of employers to take on older staff, employers’ organisations said.
The employment rate for “pensionable” workers, men aged 65-plus and women aged 60-plus, ranged between 7.5 per cent and 8 per cent for most of the 1990s but rose to 10.4 per cent during the three months to the end of January, according to the Office for National Statistics.

John Philpott, an economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said that concerns over pensions and increasing longevity were forcing people to recognise that they needed to work longer.
Sam Mercer, director of the Employers’ Forum on Age, said that employers faced with skills shortages were also more prepared to hire older people who were physically and mentally fitter than previous generations. Large supermarket chains, such as Tesco and J Sainsbury, in particular, had made an effort to employ older staff to reflect the balance of society at large and an ageing population that provided many of their customers, she said.
The number of people of pensionable age in employment rose to 1.13m during the three months to the end of February; up 85,000 on the corresponding period 12 months ago.

That accounted for more than half the total rise of 147,000 in the number of people in employment. There was also a strong increase in employment among people aged between 50 and pension age, which rose by 57,000.
The biggest numerical increase in employment was in the 35- to 49-year-old age group, where the number of people with a job rose by 118,000 to 10.92m.
By comparison, employment figures for younger people fell by 13 per cent for 16- and 17-year-olds and by 0.7 per cent for the 25-34 age group.
Ms Mercer said that the rise in employment rates for older workers was encouraging as it had been feared that employers might seek to get rid of older staff ahead of new age discrimination laws due to come into force in October.
However, Patrick Grattan, chief executive of the Third Age Employment Network, said that there were still problems “with the poor quality and low rates of pay of some part-time and full-time jobs filled by older workers”.