Scottish Widows comments on the ONS Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings Pension Tables - 2013 Provisional Results.
Lynn Graves, corporate pensions expert at Scottish Widows, commented: “The shift in how Britain’s workforce is saving into their workplace pension scheme is gathering pace. However, the pensions industry, government and employers still have work to do in educating employees about the importance of saving adequately for retirement.
“As automatic-enrolment rolls out to SMEs, workplace pension schemes will play a vital role in helping us to have a comfortable old age, but auto-enrolment alone cannot solve the UK’s pension crisis. Alongside encouraging better employee engagement around workplace pensions, we are committed to achieving greater access to information and guidance, as well as improving transparency around pricing and governance of pension schemes.
“We hope this will lead to greater understanding about the need to save adequately for retirement, and, ultimately, higher contributions among employees, as our 2013 Workplace Pensions Report research highlighted a 24% year-on-year decline in the amount workers are willing to contribute to their workplace pension.”
The 2013 Scottish Widows Workplace Pensions Report, based on a sample of 5,000 UK adults, found:
- The amount that the average employee who is waiting to be auto-enrolled into a company pension scheme is willing to contribute towards their retirement savings has dropped by almost a quarter (24%) over the last year
- Auto-enrolment has already seen over one million workers successfully enrolled in a workplace pension scheme, however among those who are still to be auto-enrolled – around 8.6 million people across the UK – the amount they are willing to save each month has fallen on last year’s levels in every salary bracket, bar the highest of £50,000+ per annum.
- In real terms this amounts to a drop from £67 a month in 2012 to just £51 this year.
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