HARNESSING the power of older workers could deposit an extra £2.5 billion into the Northern Ireland economy, a leading business advisor said yesterday.
Dr Esmond Birnie, PwC's chief economist in Northern Ireland, was commenting on new analysis which found the overall UK GDP would be boosted by £100 billion if the employment rate for workers aged 55 to 69 matched that of Sweden.
The Scandinavian country was the highest performing EU member state when it came to the employment of older workers in PwC's 'Golden Age Index' but finished third in global terms behind Iceland and New Zealand.
The index compared the employment of 'golden oldies' across 34 OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries by weighting a number of indicators such as employment, earnings and training, to reflect the impact on the labour market of workers aged over 55.
Results showed that while Iceland topped the table, Israel and Norway finishing fourth and fifth respectively and the UK ranked 19th - despite scoring better than most EU members.
Ireland is currently in 25th position, having fallen from 18th place in 2003 and 2007 and, while Chile is seen as a "high riser", Greece and Turkey fell furthest in the list since 2003.
"Our Golden Age Index identifies those countries that are leading the way in harnessing the potential of their older workers, including those in the Nordic region, New Zealand and Israel," Dr Birnie said.
"In the OECD table, the UK is only a 'middling' performer, but it performs well relative to other EU member states.
"However, this probably overstates Northern Ireland’s performance as the percentage of people in work in all age groups over 42 years of age is below that of the rest of the UK."
Despite this, Dr Birnie said if the UK adopted the policies of top performing countries like Sweden, the UK GDP would see an increase of five per cent in the long run - equivalent to around £100 billion at today's values.
"Applying that formula pro-rata to Northern Ireland could put around an extra £2.5bn into the local economy," he added.
"This would boost annual tax revenues, reduce benefit spending significantly and help to meet the long term health, social care and state pension costs of a Northern Ireland population that is ageing more rapidly than the UK average."
