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On the program today,

London Calling.

Our series, The Age of Work, continues from American Public Media.

This is Marketplace.

In London, England, the studios of the BBC, I'm Kai Risdahl.

It is Tuesday today, July the 15th.

Good as always to have you along, everybody, far from home though we are.

We've been reporting the past six months or so about the aging prime age American workforce, people 25 to 54, who have been the key drivers of the American economy for 100 years.

The catch is, demographics does indeed turn out to be destiny.

And by the middle of this century, those productive prime age workers are going to be in Africa and Southeast Asia, not North America and not Europe either.

The UK in particular is 10 or 15 years farther down that path than the United States is.

So Here we are, and by we I mean me and Neela Richardson, the chief economist at ADP, our partners and funders on our series, The Age of Work, three days on the show this week in London getting a glimpse of what may turn out to be our short-term economic future.

I should say here before we go on that we know there are things

happening in the economy back home.

But as I've said before and as remains true, the value this program brings is covering not just what happens, but why it's happening and why it matters, the long game, which is why we've come all this way.

All right, here we go.

By 2050, one in every four Brits is going to be 65 or older.

That's more than 10 years ahead of the best guesses for the United States.

Demographics, though, doesn't happen in a vacuum, which brings me to the last time we were here, 2019, right in the middle of Brexit.

I'm well.

Do you have a moment?

I don't want to take time away from business.

That's fine.

Don't worry.

I was about to have my lunch, but it's.

Well, good, so are we.

So we'll do this fast and then we can all eat.

Okay, cool.

Tell me who you are and where we are.

Okay, so I'm Samantha Wallace.

Samantha Wallace owns From Field and Flower.

It's a a honey shop in London's borough market.

So if I say Brexit to you.

Ah, yeah.

You see my face has gone very rigid.

I guess we're done here.

The interview is finished.

I've got my answer.

We've kept up with her ever since.

So naturally, before we dig deep into the age of work over the next couple of days, it was back to Borough Market we went.

All right, you know what?

Kind of smells like it's been here for 150 years.

If you've never been there, Borough Market has a little bit of everything.

Wheat cheaf, traditional London ale.

There's an Applebee's, but it can't be the Applebee's.

Raya, which is like produce

from field and flour.

Get out.

Oh, and they're busy, so we're just going to wait.

We ducked into Sam's shop after a minute or so out of the stream of market goers and tourists.

Sam!

Hi!

It's so good to see you.

How you been?

I'm well.

I'm well.

We're on your home turf now.

You are.

When we were here six years ago, it was all about Brexit and how you were going to do.

You've made it through that mostly, right?

It's been, there's, as we've talked about through the years, more paperwork, more challenges, some more expenses, but you seem to be on the other side of that.

This time, we're looking at

the aging global workforce.

Yes.

What happens to the economy, to an economy.

And we're here because

the UK is going through some things that maybe the United States is going to come through in 10 or or 15 years.

Can we talk about your workforce, who you hire, and how that goes?

Ah, well, it's a varied workforce.

And previous to quite literally this month, I just said we had an entirely young workforce, actually, predominantly students.

And then just recently, as it happens, we had somebody new join the team who's older.

Define older.

Well, I would say they are probably, again, in UK law, you're not really supposed to talk about age, but I would say they were older, they were probably middle-aged, effectively, and probably did not see themselves necessarily working on a market stall at this time in their life.

They've got other employment elsewhere, but like a lot of employment here in the UK across all sectors, nowadays single employment is just not paying the bills where it used to.

So with cost of living going up and up, so rent, bills, all of that, what was standard work that would pay and cover costs is just not covering.

So more and more people are looking for part-time jobs now.

There's also the redundancy issue, right?

What we in the States would call layoffs.

Yes.

Which, I mean, that's how you sort of made this turn, right?

You yourself were made redundant.

I was, yes, yes, yes, I was.

And now you're working for yourself.

I am, yes.

So I was in corporate communications.

I thought I would be in offices for forever.

And my husband was very much doing this business, starting it, and I was helping alongside and happened to be basically made redundant.

And I was really genuinely very lucky because this was pre-Brexit, so everything was golden.

and it was easy.

It was 10 years ago, give it to you.

Yeah, God, I can't believe it's 10 years ago.

Makes me feel quite old.

Some of you are.

Yes, but quite pleased, actually, because 10 years to be a business.

I know.

That is a thing.

Yeah, that is a thing.

Actually, that's a great question.

You guys are going concerned now.

Do you have worries about this business making it?

Oh, I think so all the time.

Yes, because we're such a seasonal business.

So our product is reliant on a workforce that lives in nature and is incredibly reliant on climate, temperature, whether it's raining or not.

If they don't get enough of those things, if the balance is just not right, we either don't get any honey at all and the bees starve and then, of course, worry about them,

or

we get an excess of honey.

And it's almost like, well, what do we do with this now?

Because for a small business like ours, where do we store it?

How do we, you know, make it essentially cover its costs, if you will.

So it's a constantly precarious game, and we never quite get it right.

It's It's never smooth sailing, which when I'm feeling philosophical I say is all part of the charm of running a business and when I'm not it's quite stressful.

What do you make of the macroeconomic situation here in the UK and you know the budget problems the government's having?

Yeah.

Right?

The immigration issue, all of those things kind of play into how you guys do your job.

It's

really tricky to be honest.

They don't make it easy.

Government decisions around where they spend money, how they invest in small businesses, red tape around, sadly, things like Brexit, what that means for small businesses.

I think it's really difficult.

We're having to kind of constantly manage an uphill struggle of more and more cost, more and more paperwork, more difficult to hire people.

You know, retail work is not necessarily the best paid profession.

And as we've talked about, when you've got rent to pay that is skyrocketing, you're going to need several jobs to pay it, effectively.

It's interesting.

So, inflation in the United States, what you all over here call cost of living, right?

Is on the wane, right?

It's sort of under control.

Over here, not so much.

Not so much.

It was going down, and it is swings and roundabouts, right?

But I think there was a lot of harping on last year about, oh, cost of living is kind of over.

We've all, you know,

kind of everything's leveled out.

Cost of energy is coming down again.

But I think in real terms, in real people's pockets and purses, it just doesn't feel like that because people don't necessarily

have lots of flush funds coming through to spend.

You know, once it's gone, it's gone.

Without asking you how old you are,

how much do you think about,

let's call it the next chapter?

What comes next for you, retirement, becoming a pensioner, whatever you guys call it over here?

You're going to get there eventually.

I will get there eventually, probably sooner than I would like, I have to say.

But I think I'm probably going to always be working.

I come from a family that have always worked.

My grandparents had their own businesses and worked till they were like 80.

You're going to work because you want to or because you have to?

I think it's going to be a bit of both.

So I think I'm not very good at not doing stuff and I love the fun stuff of running a business, like finding honeys, sharing that with customers, you know, hanging out with our staff who are awesome and being excited about the exciting things.

I love it.

It's addictive.

It's like

a rush.

But it's tiring, no?

It is tiring.

It's a heavy restaurant.

It's really hard.

It is, it is.

But I think for us, I mean, for us, retirement is realistically age regardless.

It's probably a 20-year thought away for us, I would have thought.

So the wheels really for us need to stay on this lovely little business that we have and kind of try and support that.

We are not necessarily super ambitious about trying to grow it or turn it into some amazing franchise.

We

want to stay very good at what we do in control because we're a little control freaks.

I was going to ask you why you didn't want to grow, but clearly,

yeah.

And we take our responsibilities really seriously, I think, to everybody.

So, our suppliers, to ourselves, to our staff.

And during COVID, it terrified us because we had suppliers who are very small who rely on us for their income.

We had staff who were self-employed at that point and weren't being paid under the regulations because they weren't working.

So we're still trying to pay them so that they can pay their rent.

So we kind of just really felt that we want to be a steady, stable ship for everybody.

And if we have enough so we can afford to go on holiday, we have some savings, you know, that's enough.

You can do that, right?

You can go on holiday, you can put a little bit of a lot of people in the middle.

We're getting there.

We're getting there.

Yeah, we're still there.

Not yet, because COVID blasted us.

Yes, it's really interesting.

You're still scarred by that.

Yeah, yeah, we still, you know, we're looking at our reserves, we look at our savings, and we're going, well, where, you know, we had all this cash kind of rolling around at the time to buy honey, to be able to kind of make improvements, all of that stuff.

That got just eaten up over the couple of years.

And every time we think we kind of have replenished it, we are effectively having to spend it on either, say, a new supplier because somebody's rapidly gone into retirement suddenly or gone bust,

or getting a new member of staffing because somebody's life circumstances have changed.

There's always something, basically.

This will be like asking you to pick your favorite child, and I want you to show me your favorite honey in this shop.

Oh, well,

okay, so it's not very, how can I say it,

patriotic because it's not an English one.

It's actually from Australia.

So really?

It's fascinating.

Do you want to try it?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm not a honey guy.

I don't.

We could do beer on this.

So it's quite deep.

It's quite rich.

What does that mean with a honey?

I would say, are you a wine drinker or a cheese eater?

I'm a beer guy.

Oh, so I would say it's the equivalent of rather than having a very light lager, to like having more of a hoty air.

You can speak my language.

I don't even like beer, but I've had a few to myself, so I see them.

Just because it does have to be said, that whole thing about demographics not happening in a vacuum, Brexit changed the UK's place in the global economy just as trade policy is changing ours by the day.

We are here in London through Thursday, and I'll tell you what, it is quite a change from our earlier reporting trips in Tennessee and Utah, which have the oldest and youngest, respectively, prime-age workforces in the United States.

As she did on both of those reporting trips, ADP's ADP's Neil Richardson has joined us to provide the trained economist's eye on all of this.

Neil, it is so nice to have you in the studio.

It's fantastic to be here with you, and it's fantastic to be in London.

Isn't it, though?

So

before we came into the studio, we were talking out in the bullpen

about what this series and what this reporting is all about.

And you said it's about the next

30, 50 years, right?

It's about the future for both the people and for the global economies and the global balance of economic power.

That's right.

We're basically here in London chasing the future.

Because when we went to Cumberland, Tennessee, we were asking a question, how does a community change as it ages?

And then when we went to Salt Lake City in Provo, Utah, we were left with a question, how do you take the dynamism, the social connection in that young workforce and just proliferate it around the world?

And we're here to find an answer to that.

And we've seen a couple of things.

We heard the first bit in part of Sam's answer talking about older workers, right?

There are very distinct ways that economies can adjust, and we're going to see those.

It's about reinvention.

You have to get your workers working longer.

You have to get your tech up to speed, and you have to have a sensible immigration policy for your country.

Because over time, the only way these economies that are aging can survive is if there are more workers and those workers become more productive.

Okay, but two out of three of those, right, technology and immigration require governments to do things.

And it's a challenge here in the UK, right?

The Prime Minister, Kier Starmer, has some thoughts on immigration, let's just say.

And certainly we know at home, President Trump has, shall we say, thoughts on immigration, too, right?

So it's a tricky balance.

It's a tricky balance, but you said it yourself.

Demographics are destiny.

And you look at where the young, the talent, the workers are coming in.

It's Africa, it's Southeast Asia.

And so there is this virtuous cycle that is happening in our midst, and it's about capturing it before it overtakes us.

That's why I call it chasing the future.

This is not 100 years in the future.

This is 20, 30 years in the future.

Hey, in the UK, it's 10 years into the future.

We're here in the now, and they're trying to solve this problem.

I want to be really clear here that it's not about aging in and of itself.

It's about the prime age workforce in these countries getting older.

In the 1990s, the UK, the U.S., these advanced economies, Japan, China, we had a distinct advantage.

We had young talent.

That advantage is now disappearing and it's moving to other countries.

And so we're going to have to figure out how do we keep up in the next 50 years.

Take me to the future then that you've been talking about.

What's it going to look like for the UK, for Europe, for Japan, for the United States, when we don't have that prime age workforce?

It depends on what we do now.

The future is still being written.

If the problem isn't solved, you're going to have more and more people consuming and fewer and fewer people working.

And we know what that looks like.

We just came from that five years ago.

It was called inflation and it was global.

And that is what the world is looking at.

That's what we're facing, unless we solve it.

And if we solve it, the promise is higher standards of living.

It's growth.

It's innovation.

We saw it in Provo.

The future could be bright, but we have to get it together in the present.

We are going to see in the next couple of days.

We're going to see stories about entrepreneurship, right?

Older workers getting back into the economy through entrepreneurship.

We're going to see stories of technology.

Do you think the United States is keeping up in getting those parts of this equation going?

I don't think we've perfected every part of that equation.

There's some learning that we can do.

That's why we're in London to get further down that path, to see what other places are doing that are further along the demographic horizon.

But I have to say this, Kai.

We're talking about the global economy, these big, you know, macro trends.

But I was struck in the people that we talk to, that's not just about the economics.

It's about value.

And in some cases, it's about self-worth.

As we age, if our worth is tied to our work and we can no longer participate in that work, it changes how we see ourselves.

This is not just about the future of the global economy.

This is what I learned in the last three days.

This is the future of self.

That is what you call foreshadowing.

We'll hear that later on in the program.

Neila Richardson at ADP.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Coming up.

It was that feeling of invisibility, like you'd just been erased.

Like Neil has said, trying to get back in the workforce in your 60s.

But first, let's do the numbers.

Dow Industrial's down 436 today.

That is 1% on the nose, 44,023.

The NASDAQ picked up 37 points, about 2 tenths percent, 20,677.

The S ⁇ P 500 down 24.

That's 4 tenths percent, 62, and 43.

The consumer price index came out today shows inflation ticked up again in June, an increase of 2.7% in the past year.

That's a headline number.

Maybe it's tariffs, maybe it's noise.

We need some more data.

Yes, I am J-Pal.

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This is Marketplace.

I'm Kai Rizdahl.

As Neela and I were talking about, we have come to London to see how the United Kingdom is changing as its workforce ages.

Changes that are coming to the United States, whether we like it or not.

The American labor force is getting older.

Something like 4 million people are turning 65 every single day.

And that's happening not only in the United States.

It's a trend most prevalent in advanced economies like the US and Japan, the European Union, and the United Kingdom.

My name is Raine.

My name is Elaine.

Irene.

My name is John Richard Jacobs.

I'm an East Ender Frond Fro.

We went out to a street market the other day, a town in the East London borough of Havering.

We're in Romford.

Which is not the East End.

People think this is the East End.

And we come here normally every Wednesday, but hospital appointments, so we've come today instead.

It's a part of the country where retirees make up a good portion of the population.

Retirees, that's such an American word.

Retirees?

It's like a worn-out tyre.

Pensioners is the word they use here.

That's it, old pensioner.

I'm a golden oldie, as I call it.

I'm 68.

My eldest daughter started school the same day as Reen's youngest son, and we met then and we've been friends for 45 years.

49

this year.

You ask the people in Rumford about the economy, and you're going to hear a lot that sounds real similar to the things we hear back home.

The price of everything is ridiculous.

It's rubbish.

It's not getting any better.

It's getting worse.

Disgraceful.

We used to have a lovely market.

packed with people and stalls and now it's really gone down.

I've done my bit, I've paid my taxes to the economy.

We're pensioners, so that's our early income, and we do notice it.

Prices are rising here faster in the UK than they are at home.

Their latest reading on inflation back in May was a full percentage point higher than in the United States, and that means some people have no choice but to keep working longer.

A conversation with one of those people in a minute.

Okay, here's the bit Neela was talking about.

You are going to hear from a lot of people over the next couple of days about the reality of living and working in the UK as it and its workforce age.

Hi, how are you?

I'm Kai.

Hi, Kai, Stuart.

Nice to see you, Stuart.

How are you?

That's my colleague Nila.

Nice to meet you, too.

And we're going to start with a conversation that Neela and I had on a park bench this past Sunday.

Tell us who you are, first of all.

Okay, so my name's Stuart Morris.

Born and bred London, although I can't say I really recognize this area anymore.

So I'm 62 years old and I'm a technical program manager in IT.

We're talking to a 62-year-old IT manager because of how and why he got the job he's in right now.

Two years ago, at 60, Stewart was laid off.

So he did what you do.

He applied for tons of jobs, got the latest and greatest IT certifications, and still, nothing.

So here comes the really subjective question.

What's it like being 60 and out of work and not being able to get back in?

Terrifying, frankly.

Yeah, not ready to retire.

Still got lots to give.

I'm in a fortunate position.

Many of my peers are not in the fortunate position that I was in.

We've had to deplete our savings substantially over that period of time.

We didn't lose our house, but we could have.

What I had to reassess, what I had to really think about was that it was that feeling of invisibility, like you've just been erased.

Your self-worth is ebbing away and it gnaws at you day by day, so it gets worse.

I think I had to swallow a fair amount of my own pride

to consider other options.

One of the choices that I made

was that I would

relinquish my own opinion of my title and my status

and that I would

accept

that my role was going to be something else.

Let me make sure I understand what you're saying.

A less high-profile job at a lower rate of pay.

Basically, that is it.

So I was happy at that point, not happy.

I was content

to accept that my place in the hierarchy had moved.

So I got myself back into a role.

And I think it beats being invisible any day of the week.

And that's what the unemployed scenario feels like.

You're talking about two types of currency, the payment, the pay, the salary, and the currency of value contribution.

Totally mean that.

Totally.

Yeah.

Both are very important to me.

I've still got bills to pay.

At this point, at 62,

I've got to whack as much in that pension as I possibly can.

Yeah?

That means I've actually got to achieve a level of income that

I'm happy with.

And I think, you see, this is what I'm hoping, I can demonstrate the value that I can offer to my current employer and to the organisation that I'm working for, and they'll feel that I'm worth it.

And if I can get it financially, well, that will get the bank off my back.

And that's my ambitions for right now.

Can I ask you one more thing?

In this journey that you've been on, is there anything that the UK government could have done to support you, support you differently?

It's not just about me.

There are many, many people

in the same situation.

Once you're over 45, and it's 45 really, not even 50, yeah,

once you're over 45,

you are not beyond your sell-by date.

And I also think that from a policy point of view,

there's room for incentivisation to suggest that organisations would be better served

by bringing on mature talent into their space.

Also, if you look at any sports team,

any championship winning team, it's a blend.

You can't do it with just kids and you can't do it with old people.

It's a blend.

More of our series, The Age of Work, from London tomorrow, including, and I'm not making this up, Robot dogs.

All right, we got to go.

No time for a final today, really.

It's a good problem to have too much content, not enough time.

Jordan Manji, Zunil Maharaj, Janet Wynn, Olga Oxman, Virginia K.

Smith, and Tony Wagner are the digital team.

Francesca Levy is the executive director of digital.

I'm Kyle Rizdell.

We will see you tomorrow.

This is APM.

Did you know 39% of teen drivers admit to texting while driving?

Even scarier, those who text are more likely to speed and run red lights.

Shockingly, 94% know it's dangerous, but do it anyway.

As a parent, you can't always be in the car, but you can stay connected to their safety with Greenlight Infinity's driving reports.

Monitor their driving habits, see if they're using their phone, speeding, and more.

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Plus, with weekly updates, you can track their progress over time.

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