Pensions - Articles - 35,000 McDonald's workers to be auto enrolled using NEST

 Fast food giant McDonalds will use the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) for 35,000 hourly-paid workers as part of a two-tier auto-enrolment solution.

 Any eligible hourly-paid workers at the burger chain will be auto-enrolled into the NEST, but salaried workers will be placed in its existing Friends Life stakeholder scheme.

 McDonalds will begin auto-enrolment for salaried staff on 1 January 2013 and will use postponement to delay auto-enrolling hourly-paid staff until 13 January to fit in with the pay period.

 About 2,000 employees are eligible for the Friends Life scheme - although figures were not available for the number of existing members - while 35,000 workers face auto-enrolling into NEST.

 McDonalds has 90,000 employees in the UK in total, with about 53,000 in franchises across the country.

 These franchises will undergo auto-enrolment separately later this summer and owners will have the discretion to choose their own pension arrangements, or follow McDonald's advice and auto-enrol into NEST or Friends Life.