UK’s long housing boom helped trigger exodus of older workers

BRITAIN’S long housing boom helped to trigger the exodus of older people from the workforce, labour market experts warned.

Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies, said that surging house prices and gold-plated pensions have given many in the Baby Boomer generation the ability to retire early. The result has helped to deepen staff shortages pushing up wages and inflation across the UK.

A wave of retirees since the pandemic struck have been one of the key drivers of falling labour force participation in the UK. Years of soaring asset prices have allowed older generations to build enough wealth to allow them to retire comfortably.

“That’s a really big part of it, is housing wealth,” Wilson said in a hearing in Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 21). “The other is occupational primarily defined-benefit pension schemes, most of which have now closed, which people in their 50s are still benefiting from. The third is the growth of asset prices in general.”

Although signs are gathering that property prices are in retreat, the average cost of a home in the UK have soared by 28 per cent since the pandemic struck. That turbo-charged a property market boom stretching back a decade.

Research by the Resolution Foundation found that the surge in people taking early retirement was disproportionately driven by older rich professionals, many of whom own their house outright and have lower living costs. BLOOMBERG