Recent items from PRIME Business Club
The PRIME Initiative provides free information, events and training to help older people get back into work by starting their own business - also known as “becoming self-employed”.
PRIME has another web site at www.primebusinessclub.com that provides practical information and guidance to such “olderpreneurs”. Meanwhile this site here is for those seeking background on the charity itself, its work and campaigns - including potential supporters.
The charity’s activities are needed because the over-50s face huge problems of unemployment and age discrimination in the conventional job market. HRH The Prince of Wales recognised this huge labour-market failure - which is common to all developed countries, when he founded PRIME (the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise).
In the UK almost one person in three aged between 50 and state pension age is workless. Of these less than 10 per cent are retired on adequate incomes. The remaining 90 per cent are on incapacity benefit, registered unemployed, caring, made redundant or retired with an inadequate pension.
PRIME was set up to assist older entrepreneurs across the whole of the UK. It is currently active on the ground in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Wales it works through PRIME Cymru, PRIME’s sister organisation, with whom PRIME works closely under our joint President, Prince Charles.
PRIME’s work with olderpreneurs complements the Prince’s other enterprise charities, which are more associated with youth.
PRIME seeks to help anyone aged over 50 in the UK who wants to start their own business or set up a social enterprise with other people. It can only provide the vital work of giving people back their financial independence, self-reliance and dignity with your support, help and donations. For details of how you can help, see Support us.
You can get a feel for the work of PRIME by reading the articles and blogs on this web site. To find specific items use the search box at top right, or to see the most recent items go to News. There’s more about the charity itself under About.
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Anne Walsh, 53 from Manchester, went from BT operations manager to quirky craftswoman, when she applied for voluntary redundancy.
BT operations manager Anne Walsh was the breadwinner for a disabled husband and three children. Fed up with her office job, Anne promised herself she would change her life when she turned 50. Anne applied for voluntary [...]
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Two big changes affecting the way government deals with small business have emerged out of the current spate of resignations and today’s cabinet reshuffle.
Firstly Alan Sugar, the business star from TV’s The Apprentice has accepted a new role promoting enterprise from within government. The role is unpaid, but Sir Alan is expected to accept [...]
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Upward Curve PR has chosen PRIME as its Charity of the Year 2009 to 2010. “We are so pleased to be able to offer PRIME PR support”, says Helen Ashley of Upward Curve. “We chose them because we felt that with our aging population and the current recession, the charity’s focus is particularly relevant.”
“The over-50s [...]
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Over the next 20 years the UK’s population will age faster than ever before in its history. There will be 5.4 million more people of pension age - an increase of 45 per cent. At the same time, our working-age ratio is declining. This combination has serious implications for the economy, with proportionally fewer workers [...]
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PRIME has published Generations Forgotten, a study into attitudes to older people as entrepreneurs based on an independent survey of a thousand people.
The study demonstrates the difficulties the over 50s have in finding work as employees, principally because of ageist attitudes - which the over 50s clearly perceive as still rife. And it highlights the key [...]
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Barbie has joined the ranks of the 50-plus, an event celebrated in characteristic style with an immediate facelift. Plastic surgeons at Californian-based manufacturer Mattel have given the world’s most famous doll “a more natural look, including a thinner jaw line, more almond-shaped eyes and fuller lips”.
It is notoriously difficult to judge people’s ages nowadays, as [...]
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Pension giant Standard Life has produced a very interesting report called The Death of Retirement. The key findings are that the current generation of older people are very different to their parents. Above all they want to keep doing things. Baby boomers want to travel, work - and even launch new business ventures. Retirement in [...]
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A Channel 4 Dispatches documentary has revealed that substantial barriers still face older people in Britain’s job market - despite the passage of laws supposedly outlawing such ageism. Called “Too old to work“, the programme transmits on Monday the 9th of February.
Not surprisingly, the investigation finds that being older - even over 45, is a [...]
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Prince Charles describes the work of his charity PRIME and welcomes new sponsorship deal
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I am delighted to speak to you today as the President of PRIME - the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise.
I founded PRIME over eight years ago after receiving large numbers of letters [...]
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Garry Stephenson, 55, has set up an innovative photography company just months after being made redundant.
Garry, from Cannock in the West Midlands, was made redundant at Christmas from his job inspecting motor homes for a large local vehicle importer. His company SkyHiFotos.co.uk offers photography from an unusual angle – taken from the top of a [...]
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Some 800,000 people between 50 and state pension age are currently inactive but want to work, according to a new report commissioned by PRIME and written by leading economist Christopher Smallwood.
The majority of new businesses are created by people in their forties and fifties - indeed business owners aged over 50 account for 15 per [...]