AMONG the major backers of the new York initiative is B & Q, whose policy of employing older staff has paid off at its big stores like its branches in Hull Road, York, and on Clifton Moor shopping park.

Why does it want to spearhead what it calls "the grey revolution"?

Because, due to a dip in the birth-rate, the UK's labour force is unlikely to increase again until after 2010. In the late 1980s B&Q decided to anticipate the effects of the demographic time bomb and began to explore alternative sources of labour such as women returners, the long- term unemployed, older workers and the disabled.

The company found that the steepest growth in the labour force was going to come from the 45-plus age group.

Its own staff were predominantly young and analysis of its labour force showed that one of its business problems - staff turnover - was highest among the younger staff members.

By employing more mature people, B&Q thought it would address these problems and also benefit in other ways.

In 1989, B&Q opened a store in Macclesfield completely staffed by over-50s and in 1990 opened another in Exmouth. Both of these operations worked extremely well and the company looked positively at employing the over-50s across all its stores.

"Older people are more likely to be home owners and to have done DIY themselves," says Bill Whiting, B&Q's UK managing director, "therefore, their knowledge and interest in DIY and DIY products is likely to be higher than in younger age groups.

"More mature employees are also likely to have a different perspective of what constitutes good customer service and we often find that they spend more time with customers helping them with their DIY queries."

When B&Q advertised in Macclesfield for "older staff to make us a wiser store" , two open days drew more than 500 people and more than 600 people applied for 50 jobs. Nationally the jobs attracted 7,000 applications.

Updated: 09:07 Tuesday, April 23, 2002