A growing number of older people at work could mean more employees experiencing health issues and increased focus on health-related benefits as part of the reward package. We explore the employment law considerations and share five practical tips.

We read a lot in the media about older people and the workforce: increasing numbers of older people are in the workforce because people are living longer (not just in the UK but worldwide – by 2030, 1 in 6 people in the world will be aged 60 or over); and increasing numbers of older people are leaving the workforce (economic inactivity in the UK has increased significantly since the Covid pandemic and a significant number of those dropping out of work were aged over 50).

There’s also plenty of information about ill health and the workplace: the number of people out of the UK labour market because of long-term sickness has been rising in recent years (since the start of the pandemic, the number of people out of work because of long-term sickness rose by 363,000 and more than half of these were aged 50 - 64) and rates of sickness absence in 2022 were the highest since 2004, an estimated 185.6 million working days.

Being older doesn’t necessarily mean you will experience more ill health than younger colleagues, but statistics show that ill health can be an increasing issue for older workers. It is unlawful age discrimination to force a worker to retire at a certain age, unless this can be “objectively justified” (which can be...

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