More workers to start paying into workplace pension schemes
MORE workers and their employers are falling within the scope of secondary workplace pensions in the island. Since the arrangements launched in July, with local employers of more than 26 staff required to automatically enrol eligible employees into an approved pension scheme, some 3,500 workers have started to build up pension rights.
From the start of the year the scope has extended to employers with six staff or more.
Almost 300 applications have so far been made to set up secondary pensions under the States-approved Your Island Pension scheme, which Employment & Social Security president Peter Roffey described as ‘encouraging’.
The island currently has more than 19,000 people receiving the ‘old age pension’, with expenditure rising to nearly £170m. last year and more expected over the next few years. The qualifying age for the States pension rises to 66 from March as part of an agreed gradual increase to 70 by 2049.
