Australian men can now be expected on average to work until age 67, and women to age 65, according to new data.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics released its latest data set on Thursday, with the increase attributed to the rising cost of living and more white-collar workers who tend to remain in the workforce longer.
The retirement age is up 2.2 years for men and 1.1 years for women compared with 2014-2015 figures.
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KPMG economist Terry Rawnsley on Thursday told Sunrise viewers that, for many people these days, it was “pretty easy to keep on working to your late 70s“.
“These are accountants, engineers, lawyers — more of these people are working for longer whereas, in the past, we had more blue-collar workers,” Rawnsley said.
“Tradies, people working in factories — those jobs are physically demanding and it’s harder to work for longer.”
Rawnsley said some people even opted to work “well into their 80s”.
Rawnsley added work from home or hybrid arrangements have also changed the workforce and made it easier for some people to continue working for longer.
“Post-COVID, especially for men in white-collar jobs, a lot more people are participating,” Rawnsley said.
“Working from home might keep it an attractive role for employees. I might want to work a couple of days a week and it’s easy for me to work from home, it’s easy to keep that flexibility.
“That flexibility appears to be a really important factor for the older demographic.”
Rawnsley said that working longer was good for the economy — and usually the workers themselves.
“It means people are less reliant on the aged pension moving forward,” he said.
“People are paying taxes for longer, which helps the federal treasury.
“Research has shown the more you work, you also have good health outcomes as well which saves on health costs.”
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