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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How facts are reported often affects how people respond to them. So the changes made this month by the Office of National Statistics in how it reports age in its main labour market figures is a welcome development.
The most important change in the newly released August 2010 ONS labour market statistical bulletin relates to the [...]
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The number of older workers trapped in long-term unemployment has rocketed to a ten-year high - soaring by over 50 per cent in the last year alone. Planned changes to working age benefits could drive this figure even higher, warns Age UK today.
PRIME’s Director of Development, Peter Bennie, said that against this increasingly challenging backdrop [...]
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Olderpreneurs are not being put off by the recesion. A higher proportion are going ahead and giving self-employment a go than five years ago.
These are among the preliminary results of a follow-up study PRIME is currently conducting. We are ringing a sample of 500 clients who contacted us between six months and 18 months [...]
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Government plans to scrap the default retirement age from October 2011 are to be welcomed. Our sister charity Age UK estimates that around 100,000 older workers were pensioned off against their will in 2009 as employers used forced retirement as a shortcut to shed jobs. So potentially the new policy will contribute to an immediate [...]
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Buried away in the detail of the Chancellor’s budget report is notice of the end of a very valuable incentive for those struggling to work their way off benefit. From April 2012, the 50-plus element will be removed from Working Tax Credit. This means PRIME clients won’t be able to get it any more. This could [...]
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I grew up in a household where every time someone complained about something, my father said “Well why don’t you do something about it?”. The “it” in the question was usually something as minor as third-world poverty or nuclear disarmament.
So having worked as a supplier in the business support sector for the last 18 years, [...]
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More details are emerging of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition’s policy on issues that affect employment creation and the encouragement of new businesses. Here’s a round-up based on what’s been said in important ministerial statements today. I also include some words said before the election by the winning side that still seem to be relevant.
The official [...]
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The House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee has been looking at contracted employment programmes - the sort of thing people are sent on by Jobcentre Plus after they have been out of work for a while.
Jobcentre itself does not actually run these programmes, but instead contracts them out to mainly private providers. The bulk [...]
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Joblessness among the over-50s rose by 14,000 to 398,000 in the three months to January, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show.
This is on the official unemployment count. The official count includes only those out of work who are claiming Jobseekers Allowance, making it fairly inaccurate for both younger and older [...]
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PRIME, the charity founded by Prince Charles to help people over the age of 50 across the UK to get back into work by starting their own businesses, has appointed Richard Martin as Chairman Designate. He will take over from the existing Chair Pauline Norton in the summer.
Pauline says “I am delighted that Richard will [...]
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Plans to deal with pension shortfalls by encouraging people to work for longer received a dash of cold water today. Three-quarters of us could be too ill to work, Professor Sir Michael Marmot of University College London warns in a new report.
All but the richest Britons suffer years of ill health. People in [...]
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In all the events and reports on worklessness that have come out over the last couple of weeks youth unemployment is always the central theme. But the evidence on youth unemployment is a bit like jelly - bright and brash on the surface, but 95 per cent water. You can’t use it to support anything. [...]
