Higher female pension age to lower employment rate

LONDON (Reuters) - Jobs data will be adjusted from August to take account of the rise in the retirement age for women, resulting in a lower employment rate, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.

The pensionable age for women will start rising in stages this year to reach 65 by 2020 from 60 currently.

The ONS said the change will slightly lower the employment rate of the population as a whole because the employment rate of women aged 60-64, at around one in three, is much smaller than that of the rest of the workforce.

Statisticians have calculated that the rise in the pensionable age for women lowered the employment rate of the population as a whole by 1.8 to 2 percentage points between 1992 and 2009 on a non-seasonally-adjusted basis.

The seasonally-adjusted series was therefore also likely to be slightly lower, although the ONS said it had not calculated by how much.

In the three months to October, Britain's employment rate was 72.5 percent.

Inactivity rates will also be affected by the change in the retirement age for women, but there will be no alteration to the claimant count measure, which is based on a different survey, the ONS said.