More and more Australians are reducing the number of days they work before actually retiring,
Over the past three decades there has been a marked a shift in how people retire, KPMG director of demographics Terry Rawnsley, said, with a two or three-year period of semi-retirement becoming the norm for a growing number of people.
More retirement-age workers are slipping down to four, then three and then maybe two days a week.
“A lot of it does look to be not about the financial imperative, but about, ‘I enjoy my work, I love to engage with people on a regular basis’,” Terry told the Financial Review.
Helen Nan, a financial adviser and principal at Plan For Your Future, said most of her clients now go through a period of semi-retirement before completely leaving work behind.
While finances may play a part in it, it’s more often due to a desire to keep busy and fill their time with activities that they deem important.
COVID-19 saw a lot of people over 55 return to the workforce.
“The Australian labour market grew by 537,000 people, and about a third of those people were over 55,” said Terry.
“It was this big surge of people over 55 coming out of the labour force and back into the labour force, whether they were retired or marginally attached to the labour forces.”