May 10, 2007	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 22, 1428

ISLAMABAD, May 9: The government has rejected a proposal to increase the retirement age of government servants from the current 60 years to 62 or 65. Informed sources told Dawn that a detailed review of the proposal revealed that it would in fact increase the salaries and pension bills when taken together instead of reducing the pension bills. As a result, the government concluded that an extension in service “should be considered as an exception and not as a rule”.

This means that the existing policy of pick and choose will continue in extension of service as contract jobs where necessary, instead of a blanket extension in superannuation age to all government servants.

The proposal was originally conceived by the National Commission on Government Reforms (NCGR) to enhance the retirement age of civil servants from the present 60 years to 62.

The ministry of finance was of the view that an extension in retirement age would not solve the problems because few jobs were created every year. The rate of job creation should be increased and not the age to sustain the economic growth.

This would not be possible if the old population kept on working till their graves and new people don’t find vacancies, it said.

The ministry said that the reform body was mulling the proposal in view of increase in life expectancy but the need for job creation for the 160 million people was more important because a huge chunk of it was below the age of 25.

The retirement age is 60 in the United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US), Sweden and Norway. In Australia it is 67, Japan 65, Singapore and Thailand 62, while in China, Korea, and the Philippines it is 60. Pakistan cannot be compared with the rich European nations where the number of old population is increasing rapidly and the birth rate is also very low.