Britain’s over-50s are paying the heaviest price for Labour’s workers’ rights overhaul, with the number of older jobseekers unable to find work climbing by 22 per cent since 2023, according to the latest figures.

Just shy of a million workers aged 50 and above are currently locked out of the labour market, the latest Labour Force Survey data shows, with the age group consistently registering the highest rates of redundancy across the workforce.

Some 917,000 people aged 50 to 66 are unable to find a job, rising to 996,743 once those aged 66 to 70, many of whom remain keen to work despite being eligible for the state pension, are included.

Industry leaders have laid the blame squarely at the door of the Employment Rights Act and the Chancellor’s increase in employer National Insurance contributions (NICs), arguing that the combined cost has made firms markedly more cautious about taking on new hires, particularly more experienced and therefore more expensive ones.

“Older workers, likely on higher salaries than their Gen Z colleagues, have borne the brunt of businesses reassessing their hiring strategies,” said Kevin Fitzgerald, UK managing director at jobs platform Employment Hero.

Alex Hall-Chen of the Institute of Directors echoed the concern, pointing to the Employment Rights Act, the rise in employer NICs and successive increases to the minimum wage as a triple blow that has dampened employer appetite for risk.

Although the Act’s provisions apply to workers of all ages, several measures hit older employees disproportionately hard in practice. The scrapping of the cap on payouts for successful unfair dismissal claims is widely expected to prove costlier in cases involving over-50s, who tend to command higher salaries and whose tribunal awards are typically calculated as multiples of pay.

The Act’s expanded right to request changes to hours or location, particularly where employees are juggling health conditions or caring responsibilities — is also likely to be invoked more frequently by workers in their 50s and 60s, many of whom are supporting elderly parents or managing their own long-term conditions.

Compounding the picture are structural shifts beyond Westminster’s control. The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence across white-collar roles and the lingering hangover from the post-Covid jobs downturn have together hollowed out mid-to-senior positions that older workers have traditionally relied upon.

Lyndsey Simpson, founder of career-coaching platform 55/Redefined, said the fallout from losing a senior or well-remunerated role in one’s 50s can be devastating and long-lasting.

“That’s why people are ‘age-scrubbing’ their CVs. They remove dates, hide early roles and play down seniority because they know age can work against them before they even get an interview,” she said.

Dr Andrea Barry of the Centre for Ageing Better warned that the scale of the crisis among older workers is now comparable to the much-discussed plight of young people not in education, employment or training (Neets), yet receives a fraction of the attention.

“The Government is right to invest in solutions for the current youth employment crisis, but the labour market is in crisis at both ends of the age range and on a similar scale,” she said.

For SME employers already grappling with rising payroll costs, tightening tribunal exposure and the spectre of further regulation, the temptation to play it safe at the recruitment stage is proving difficult to resist, and it is Britain’s most experienced workers who are bearing the cost.

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I graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1984 with a degree in electronic engineering and from 1984 until 1998 worked in the commercial construction industry as an engineer, a project manager and an operations manager.
I began investing in the stock market 2 months prior to the 1987 stock market crash and thus quickly learned about the downside potential of stocks. Only slightly daunted by the rather inauspicious timing of my entry into the world of financial market investments, my interest in the stock market grew steadily over the years.
In 1993, after studying the history of money, the nature of our present-day fiat monetary system and the role of banks in the creation of money, I developed an interest in gold. Another very important lesson soon followed: gold may be the ideal form of money for those who believe in free markets and a wonderful hedge against the inherent instability of the government-imposed paper currencies, but it is not always a good investment.
By mid-1998 the time and money involved in my financial market research/investments had grown to the point where I was forced to make a decision: scale back on my involvement in the financial world or give up my day job. The decision was actually quite an easy one to make and so, at the beginning of 1999, I began investing/trading on a full-time basis.
My major concern in deciding to pursue a career in which I devoted all of my time to my own investments was that I would miss the personal interaction that had been part and parcel of my business management career. The Speculative Investor (TSI) web site was launched in August of 1999 as a means for me to interact with the world by making my analysis/ideas available on the Internet and inviting feedback from others with similar interests.
During its first 14 months of operation the TSI web site was free of charge, but due to the site’s growing popularity I changed it to a subscription-based service in October of 2000. Its popularity continued to grow, although I remained — and remain to this day — a professional speculator who happens to write a newsletter as opposed to someone whose overriding focus is selling newsletter subscriptions.
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Officials are warning customers about banking spoof calls that could trick them into emptying their accounts, with scammers posing as banking or law enforcement officials who claim they are trying to protect the customer’s money.

The FBI has described these calls as a growing problem in which customers are convinced to move their money, costing them thousands of dollars, according to ABC 7.

The agency has said spoofing and phishing schemes are designed to trick victims into providing sensitive information, such as passwords or bank PINs. Suspected cyber-enabled scams can be reported through the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

Chase customer Jennifer Lichthardt described how she lost $40,000 after receiving a spoof call.

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Officials are warning customers about banking spoof calls that could trick them into emptying their accounts. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images / Getty Images)

“The first call I got, it was the number on the back of my Chase debit card, and it said Chase fraud department,” Lichthardt told ABC 7.

The scammers who were pretending to call from her bank’s number said that Chase employees were accessing accounts. They claimed to be representing Chase and even the FBI.

“They read me my account number. They had my account balance down to the penny,” Lichthardt said. “They had fake FBI agents that gave me an agent number.”

Lichthardt was eventually convinced to move nearly $40,000 from her Chase account into a new so-called “secured” Chase account at her local branch and to transfer thousands more to another online bank. The money she sent later disappeared.

She reported what happened after she realized she had been scammed the following morning.

Lichthardt described feeling “financially violated” after the incident.

Chase said that “her funds were withdrawn from the scammer’s account the same day” the funds were deposited.

“We urge all consumers to ignore phone, text, or internet requests to move money or gain access to their computer or bank accounts. Banks and legitimate companies won’t make these requests, but scammers will,” Chase said in a statement to ABC 7.

Chase urged consumers to “ignore phone, text, or internet requests to move money or gain access to their computer or bank accounts.” (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The Federal Trade Commission also has a direct warning for consumers, saying it is a scam if someone tells consumers to move their money to “protect it.”

“Never transfer or send money, cryptocurrency, or gold to someone you don’t know in response to an unexpected call or message,” the FTC website reads.

Huntington Bank customer Susie Allgood also received a spoof call from someone claiming to be from Zelle.

“And in order to continue to receive, continue receiving money to and from Zelle, I had to upgrade my Zelle account to a business account,” Allgood told ABC 7. “Because he said he was from Zelle and working with Huntington Bank. So, why would I not believe him? He already had my routing number.”

Allgood said she was convinced to send $5,000 via Zelle to the scammer’s account to keep her money “safe.”

“I think that each case needs to be looked at individually because, did I send the money? Yes, I did. I will admit to that. But I was also instructed by somebody who had the last four of my bank account, had my phone number,” Allgood said.

Both women reported their experiences to local authorities and the FBI.

Responding to whether she believes she will get her money back, Lichthardt said, “I don’t know. I hope I do.”

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The FBI has described these calls as a growing problem. (Getty Images / Getty Images)

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Neither victim had received a refund from her bank after being scammed and convinced to move money, according to ABC 7.

Banks generally cover certain types of unauthorized fraud, such as when someone steals your debit card information. A bank will never call a customer and ask that person to send money.

The FBI and other experts said criminals can find some banking information from the dark web or through dumpster diving. When they obtain that data, they may also be able to call the person’s bank’s automated system to review the customer’s account balance or transactions.

“When somebody is calling pretending to be the FBI, the victim then thinks they are in trouble. They are already frazzled, and when they are making these decisions, the criminal then starts to rush them more. The more they are rushed, the more decision-making they make last-minute,” Robert Richardson, a special agent with the FBI Chicago Field Office, told ABC 7.