Read the text to find out about one British man who never wants to retire. Learn the work vocabulary then check you understand it in our quiz. 
The age of retirement seems to get higher every year. Men and women used to retire in their early sixties and even before. As people are living longer, the retirement age has increased and may keep on going up.
It makes sense that people should work longer if they live to an older age. More people means more taxes are needed to pay for health care, schools etc. However, can a 65 or 70 year old work? If so, what kind of job can they still do?
Jim Clements is a workaholic which is which normal nowadays but he is a centenarian. 100-year-old Jim officially retired over 30 years ago but got bored. The majority of retirees stay at home, do some gardening, watch TV or go travelling. They don’t normally find a new job and go back to work. Jim is different, he works part-time at a company in South England and does basic administration work like answering the phone, filing and photocopying. He started as a temporary employee but is now a permanent member of staff.
This great-grandfather has no wish to retire, he likes his job and wants to keep busy. He says it helps him to stay fit and healthy and enjoys working with his younger colleagues. In fact, he likes them so much he makes them cups of English tea with milk and sugar.
Jim started working aged 14 and hasn’t really stopped. That means he’s had a job for 86 years and it looks like he may have one for a lot longer. He’s a great example of a hardworking employee and a person who wants to contribute to society. Yet, should companies be hiring or keeping staff who should have retired years ago? It’s an interesting question as there are so many people unemployed at the moment.
Work language
- retirement
- the part of your life when you reach 65+ and don’t work
- workaholic
- someone who loves working and can’t stop
- centenarian
- a person who is 100 years of age
- retirees
- people who reached 65 and stopped working
- part-time
- not every day like a person who only works 2 days a week
- administration
- work involving documents and tasks in an office
- filing
- when you put documents in folders in an office
- photocopying
- when you make more duplicates of a document
- temporary
- only for a short time
- permanent
- forever
- great-grandfather
- a person whose grandchildren have children
