Premium
Divestment or investment? The contradictions of HRM in relation to older employees
Author(s) -
Lyon Phil,
Hallier Jerry,
Glover Ian
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
human resource management journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.44
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1748-8583
pISSN - 0954-5395
DOI - 10.1111/j.1748-8583.1998.tb00159.x
Subject(s) - divestment , relation (database) , investment (military) , citation , management , library science , sociology , political science , law , economics , computer science , database , politics
First paragraph: In the context of organisational and technical change, early retirements have been widely used since the mid-1970s to reduce labour costs and to facilitate the replacement of established workers. Viewed as 'quasi-redundancy', early retirement has been a favoured employer practice as it ensures labour force reductions with minimal threat to industrial peace (Casey, 1992). Indeed the full impact of early retirement as a quiet revolution can be seen in changing rates of economic activity. In 1975, 94 per cent of British males aged 55-59 and 84 per cent aged 60-64 were economically active. The corresponding figures for 1994 were 72 per cent and 49 per cent (HMSO, 1994; 1996). By the same token, the proportion of economic activity accounted for by registered unemployment has increased over this period. While 51 per cent of 60-64 year old males were considered economically active in 1993, 7 per cent of them were registered unemployed (Social Trends, 1994). In effect, in the five years before UK state pension eligibility, only four in 10 males were actually working