A million firms have introduced pensions
MORE THAN one million employers have now enrolled their staff into a workplace pension, new figures show.
Since automatic enrolment was launched in 2012, there have been staging dates bringing employers, and their staff with them, into pensions, starting with the UK’s biggest firms and gradually filtering out to small employers.
As of January, 1,032,567 employers had met their duties.
The Pensions Regulator (TPR), which released the figures, said the scheme has led to around 9.3 million people so far saving into a pension.
TPR’s director of automatic enrolment, Darren Ryder, said: “By successfully meeting their responsibilities, employers have helped reverse the downward trend in workplace saving so that putting earnings into a pension has now become the norm.”
Currently, to be automatically enrolled into a workplace pension, employees must be aged 22 to state pension age and earn at least £10,000 per year.
In return for employees contributing a minimum of 1 per cent of their pay, employers will at least match it, with most savers also benefiting from tax relief on their contributions.
The scheme has so far been seen as a success, with around nine in 10 people staying in their pension.
However, challenges lie ahead – including helping make sure people save enough for a comfortable retirement rather than just putting aside the minimum.