Infozone: the briefing – 06/08/10

EMPLOYERS ANGERED BY SPEEDING INTRODUCTION OF RETIREMENT CHANGE

Business groups have reacted furiously to Government plans to phase out the default retirement age (DRA) from April next year. Currently, employers can force staff to retire at the age of 65 regardless of their circumstances but, under the new plans, employers will not be able to issue any notifications for compulsory retirements using the DRA procedure from 6 April 2011. The DRA will officially be scrapped on 1 October 2011.

However, employers' bodies are angered by the short time scale and some fear the change could lead to a rise in employment tribunal claims from older employees who believe they have been unfairly forced to leave their job.

POOR SKILLS IN WORKFORCE "WILL HARM UK ECONOMY"

The UK must radically reform the skills of its workforce or risk the economy losing its world-class ranking, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills has warned. Its report argues that 10 million people need to improve their skills if the UK is to achieve its ambition of being in the top eight countries in the world for skills, jobs and productivity by 2020.

However, the report predicts that the UK economy - currently the sixth-largest in the world - is on course to achieve just half that number and cautions that it is likely to slip down world rankings unless its skills and employment systems are "fundamentally reformed and improved".

MEN ARE UNHAPPIER THAN WOMEN WITH THEIR HOLIDAY ENTITLEMENT

Men are far less satisfied than women with the amount of holiday they get from work, with private-sector workers more dissatisfied than their public-sector counterparts, new research reveals.

A poll of 472 public- and private-sector employees by IFF Research found that only four in 10 men are "very satisfied" with their holiday entitlement, compared with two-thirds of women.

The gap between the public and private sectors is also significant. More than two-thirds (68%) of public-sector employees are "very satisfied" with their holiday entitlement, compared with just 42% in the private sector, the IFF Attitudes to Work survey showed.