Bleak outlook for pensions

Since coming to office he has presided over a slaughter of pension provisions for the average worker across most industries with us all moving into a new and uncertain age.

Retirement dates are changing and working longer is to become the norm. The relatively short golden age of early retirements is over.

Only this morning British Airways announced that its pilots will have to continue to fly until they are 60 and other staff will work until 65. Along with a £500m contribution by the company to the pension fund, BA believes that these measures will help deal with the pension's deficit. How that will go down with the staff is anyone's guess, but it is a better plan than a dramatically reduced set of retirement benefits.

Of course, taking £500m out of BA's profits means that any pension funds that invest in BA will take a hit. This will increase their deficits and so the vicious spiral goes on.

Working for an airline for another five years I suppose is not that bad. It's a bit different for the construction industry. The sheer physical nature of the work wears out bodies much faster. I suspect that saving in any form is not that great either. Some at the top will be OK, a bit of property development here, a consultancy job there, but for the vast majority of manual and junior supervisory staff, retirement will be a financial shock.

The pensions' debacle will not sort itself out and its impact will be felt long after Mr Brown leaves politics. The economy is being run on the grey pound, but when that runs out what will fuel the economy? Not the young who are up to their eyes in debt and will be all their lives. Or the pensioners - there won't be that many who can afford to retire completely.

The outlook for construction industry workers is bleak. I know the impact the changes in pension policy have had on the CIOB pension fund and it has been a big issue for me in all my time at the institute. Many directors in the industry are having the same sort of conversations as me. The CIOB is fortunate in being financially sound, for those less fortunate the outcome will be very different.