Stay at work till you drop

According to the Con-Dem coalition, we are in the grip of a huge financial crisis, requiring swingeing cuts in the welfare state and the public sector, VAT rises and attacks on public-sector redundancy entitlements and pensions.

But it seems to be a highly selective crisis if you read the financial columns, because business seems to be in the middle of a great big boom.

Just yesterday, Royal Dutch Shell declared a 34 per cent rise in second-quarter profits to £2.7 billion. Norwegian oil company Statoil said that its profit surged to 3.6 billion kroner from 77 million kroner a year earlier

Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB reported nearly quadrupling its profit to £336 million in the three months, compared to £90 million a year earlier. Telecoms giant BT reported a net profit of £284 million in the same period, compared to £214 million a year earlier.

Pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis SA reported that net profit rose 61 per cent to €1.7 billion in its second quarter.

German lorry manufacturer MAN reported earnings of €151 million in the April-June period, up from €27 million a year earlier. And Sony booked a net profit of 25.7 billion yen for the quarter, up from a 37.1 billion yen loss.

Not much sign of a crisis in those figures, then.

But what of working people? What's in it for them? Well, they are getting a good deal too, apparently. The government has just announced that it's going to let them work until they drop rather than forcing them to retire at 65.

The coalition is "liberating" working people to continue at work for as long as they like, although perhaps it might be better phrased as "as long as they can."

They are making much of individuals' right to choose when they retire, which is about as dishonest as it comes, when you think about it.

Because there's nothing free about having to continue at work because the state pension is inadequate or because the bankers' cock-ups have driven shares into such a nosedive that your occupational pension scheme has turned to dust in your hands.

And don't trust Pensions Minister Steve Webb when he says that "by spending longer in the workforce, they can also have a better pension in retirement." It's simply not true. Most occupational pension schemes terminate accruals at a fixed date, no matter how long you continue to work.

And the freedom to keep working is not exactly an evenly spread benefit - if it's a benefit at all.

Let's face it, it's a damn sight easier to work past 65 if you are a comfy and well-off manager than if you're a building worker or a manual worker of any kind.

No-one seems to be thinking about the youth here. If workers are being forced by inadequate pensions to work longer, with government connivance, what happens to the new generation of workers emerging from the schools and universities every year?

With 2.5 million already unemployed and 8 million economically inactive, and with a huge proportion of the workforce already forced into unsatisfactory part-time jobs, young people's prospects in the jobs market weren't great at the best of times and with more workers continuing after 65, they will be even worse.

If you can't rely on natural retirement and replacement any more, where are the new jobs to come from? The answer is, only from growth.

You might think that, but the truth is rather different. With the companies mentioned earlier, their massive profits aren't going to go into growth, they are heading straight for shareholders' pockets.

In fact, BT and Shell, in the midst of growing profits, are both in the process of shedding jobs, 7,000 in the case of Shell. So you can forget the free market creating jobs.

There are real issues here. If people want to work past 65, it is fair that they should have the freedom to do so. But if the reality of it is that they are being forced to do so by poverty or falling pensions values, that isn't freedom, it's just another kind of coercion. And to present it as a progressive measure is a blatant lie.