Cabinet plans to raise the official retirement age from 65 to 67 in order to bolster the government’s finances have divided industry, the Financieele Dagblad reports on Thursday.

Most companies have practical objections to the plan, the paper says.
‘The increase in the state pension age has nothing to do with the crisis but the government’s budget problems which already existed,’ Edo van den Assem, CEO of technical service company GTI told the paper.
‘This is not a measure to help companies,’ he said. ‘Do you see people still welding or fitting electronic switches at the age of 67?’
A spokesman for construction company Dura Vermeer said allowing people to work longer at times of economic prosperity was a good thing. ‘But as a crisis measure we would rather that people who are coming up to pension age be allowed to stop so we don’t have to sack younger workers.’
The increase will ‘absolutely lead to problems’, Michiel Peters, CEO of industrial group Vanderlande, told the paper. ‘People who work in our factories cannot physically do the job at the age of 67,’ he said.