Not heard Reform say much about how they would deal with the increasing problem of declining birth rates in the richer Northern countries and how whereas you used to have for example 10 working people supporting the retirement of 1 retiree, now we only have 4 leading to greater pressure on sourcing retirement support from other places, stretching us further. I've heard them say shallow stuff about wanting to force unemployed and sick people more into the workforce, but this falls down very badly when it comes to significant skills gaps in certain jobs or locations that don't even have unemployed or enough sick people living in them.
So what's the Reform plan for dealing with this over time if cutting immigration down as much as you would like to see? From my point of view, as someone due to retire in not much more than a decade, I am worried that my pension will be either cut, or services cut further to keep my pension the same, or I will be made to work longer.
Interesting read on the problem here: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/...c-dilemma-peri
rp, I think you'll find that by the time you come to retire, the drawable pension age will have increased another 2 if not 3 years. Talking with my Daughter the other day, she and I both reckoned by the time she comes to retire in approx another 30 years, the Government paid pension will have risen to 70 years of age, blaming all of this on the fact they say we are now living longer????
Ok, so let's assume that the recent DWP statement that 1 million of these 3 millioin are able to do work of some kind and help fill the current 1.25 million uk vacancies. What is the Reform plan to:
1. Fill the number of concentrated jobs in the NHS, social work, education where specific skills are needed but workers in short supply
2. Fill the numbers of concentrated vacancies in specific parts of the country where even demand for low skilled seasonal work is far in excess of the numbers of sick people in a 2 hour commuting area
3. Beyond that, what is the overall Reform plan, or yours for that matter, to fill the increasing number of vacancies left by retiring people, which will be increasingly unfilled even if you manage to get the 1 million sick into work, but then find the vacancies still increasing over the next 10-20 years? What's the long term plan to solve the work replacement problem?
These are problems facing all parties, and none are coming up with honest answers, largely as they are canvassing to a public that are not really aware of the extent of this problem and are trying to win support by very simplistic and populist ideas, whereas the 'standing up for the working man', and their pensions in retirement need real world solutions. I think Reform instinctively may tend to go towards scrapping state pensions altogether, but I'd love to see them set that out to their mainly aging target demographic!