Retirement

Compulsory or forced retirement — whether under a contract term or otherwise — is a dismissal. Compulsory retirement used to be a “fair reason” for dismissal, as long as the statutory retirement procedure was followed. In summary, this procedure required the employer to give at least six months’ notice to employees who were within 12 and six months of their normal retirement age (usually 65) of the intention to retire them. At the same time, the employees had to be told of their statutory right to request working beyond retirement.

The law changed on 6 April 2011, when the default retirement age (DRA) of 65 was abolished. From 6 April 2011, it is no longer possible forcibly to retire employees at age 65. The last possible date for a retirement under the statutory retirement procedure was 5 October 2012.

Forced retirement is both direct and indirect age discrimination.As a result, fixed contractual retirement ages are likely to become increasingly rare. For the law on age discrimination and compulsory retirement, see Chapter 6 - Discrimination.