Call to do more to help part-time employees into workplace pensions

Only about 58 per cent of part-time UK employees have a workplace pension, figures show. nine in 10 (86.4%) employees who work full-time have a workplace pension, but that figure falls to just over half (57.8%) of those working parttime, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The figures, from 2020, also show that just over a third (34.8%) of people with a workplace pension are in a "goldplated" defined benefit (DB) scheme, which will guarantee a certain level of income in retirement based on their salary.

Employees aged 50 to 54 are the most likely to be in a DB pension scheme.

Jamie Jenkins, director of policy and external affairs at Royal London, said: "While we see high levels of participation for full-time staff, more needs to be done to boost the numbers of part-time workers in workplace pensions.

"Similarly, contribution rates to private sector, predominantly defined contribution schemes, continue to lag signearly nificantly behind their public sector counterparts, who are more likely to have defined benefit schemes.

"If we want to see people retiring well with their defined contribution pensions then we need to see further action to boost minimum contribution rates."

Tim Gosling, head of policy at the People's Pension, said: "One of the most effective ways of ensuring more part-time workers have the option of savingintoapensionwouldbelowering the earnings threshold for automatic enrolment from £10,000 a year to £6,240."