Warrick Pryce is still driving trucks as age 81. Photo / Andrew Warner
Warrick Pryce, 81, has tried to retire at least seven times but he is still in the driver’s seat.
A mechanic by trade, he still works three days a week hauling “human poo” for a Kawerau transport company and says he wouldn’t have a show living on the pension alone.
Perched in his La-Z-Boy chair in his flat in Rotorua, Pryce arrives for his interview via Facebook video.
“Can you see me?” he chirps. “I’m upside down ... wait a minute.”
Dressed in a flannelette shirt, a jersey and shorts, Warrick tells the Rotorua Daily Post he has been driving trucks for about 30 years.
He is still behind the wheel for two reasons.
“It gives me an income and the ability to do things that I wouldn’t be able to do just on a pension. The pension is not enough to live on, it’s just for the bare necessities.
“I don’t know how some people survive as a lot of people in my age group can’t afford to do anything. I’m so very lucky, I’ve got reasonably good health and a loving family.”
Pryce felt grateful to be able to put away a few dollars for a rainy day when he knew of others in his age bracket who were doing it tough.
“Some can’t afford to buy a bottle of milk.”
The second reason was travelling the highways and byways also gave him great enjoyment and “a reason to get out of bed in the morning”.
Often he is up between 3am and 4am, and has carted everything from timber and machinery to shipping containers headed for the Port of Tauranga.
He gave a big sigh when asked about changing driver habits.
“Literally, hundreds of trucks have signs on the back that say ‘if you can’t see my mirrors I can’t see you’. What part of that do people not understand? I strike this every day, people are sitting right in under the back of the truck and they wonder why you don’t pull over to let them pass.”
He said there was also a lot more traffic and youngsters were driving high-powered cars - he felt it was too easy to get a license.
“My first car was a 1929 Willys Whippet which was flat-out at about 50 miles an hour. We learned to drive on gravel roads and how to handle a car in a slide and all those sorts of things. Kids nowadays get in cars that have more horsepower than they can handle.
“If they make mistakes today they make serious mistakes and people get killed or badly injured.”
Pryce said the hardest part of his job was connecting the trailer to the truck.
When he wasn’t in a rig, some of his time was spent driving the health shuttle for St John. He started volunteering about a decade ago and said it felt good to help and give back to the community.
His daughter Gael Provan said Pryce was amazing and fortunate a number of circumstances had fallen in his favour.
“When dad’s marriage dissolved he was initially very, very keen on buying a house and getting a mortgage. But my sisters and I said ‘why do you need to do that’ and he said ‘I need to leave something for you children’.”
Provan said renting instead gave her dad a bit of flexibility with his life instead of being miserable.
“We just want him to be happy.”
That sentiment extended to work and Gael says Warrick spent many years being a jack of all trades for Age Concern, volunteering his skills as a handyman.
“He needs to take some credit for himself as he has got a good work ethic.”
But Pryce wasn’t having a bar of it and got in the last word.
“Don’t make me out to be a hero,” he joked.
Age Concern Rotorua manager Rory O’Rourke said more people were not retiring due to necessity while others, including himself, love working.
The 73-year-old said those who retired without owning their own home, and were paying market rent, “just can’t survive” as that could take 50 to 75 per cent of their superannuation.
"So they have to try and find another job."
Yesterday Age Concern Rotorua drew a ballot for three tiny homes in its first pocket-sized neighbourhood for elderly in need. Pryce was one of the recipients.
NZME reported last month social services were increasingly concerned about the impact of the rising cost of living on pensioners.
Rotorua Whakaora co-founder Elmer Peiffer said at the time some elderly in the community were “absolutely going hungry”.
“For a lot of them, their pensions only cover the very basics for food. Their incomes are set in stone so there is very little leeway.”
Rotorua Salvation Army corps officer Hana Seddon said the number of people aged 65 and over receiving support in the past 12 months was up 30 per cent compared with pre-Covid levels.
Unfortunately, ‘‘a lot of them can’t go out and get an extra part-time job or work overtime or do other things those in the younger age bracket can do”.
Retirement Commission commissioner Jane Wrightson said its research shows retiring at 65 was common, but not the norm. A Review of Retirement Income Policies found forty percent of those 65 and over have virtually no other income besides NZ Super and another 20 per cent only have that, and a little more.
Nearly one in 10 people worked past the age of 70 while 15 per cent of those over 65 were in paid part-time work and 12 per cent in paid full-time work.
“Retirees who work because they want to are more likely to own their home, or to own it freehold compared to those who work because they have to. This shows that home ownership - which we know is declining - is a key driver of financial wellbeing and independence in retirement.”
A survey conducted by Te Ara Ahunga Ora (Retirement Commission) in December 2021 had case studies.
A 68-year-old woman said: “The only way I am able to pay the plumber, do any maintenance on my property, is to sell at the markets or take out a reverse mortgage on my home”.
“The pension covers minimum living only. Due to being made redundant and unable to find new employment in my late 50s I spent 10 years on $250 a week so had to start making and selling at the markets to pay the bills and survive.”
A 66-year-old man said: “If you don’t own your own home you have to work until the day you die or just sit at home not moving until you die, if you can find anywhere cheap enough to rent”.
Randstad New Zealand general manager of talent solutions Ian Scott said according to its latest Randstad Workmonitor research, which surveyed 1000 people, almost 70 per cent of Kiwis were considering delaying retirement.
Job security and ‘unretirement’ are top of mind amid economic uncertainty which would have significant implications for workplaces and workforces.
"Older workers offer huge potential benefits to organisations. Whilst adapting our workplaces and ways of working to provide a more inclusive environment for older generations involves a bit of thought and effort, it has a significant payoff."
He said while there could be a clash of cultures and values there was also the opportunity for a meeting of the minds.
According to Stats NZ, in 2018, 88,785 people aged 65 and over were still in full-time employment, up from 68,652 in 2013.
The jury's marathon deliberations ran for two weeks.