| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pensions Question | |
| Posted by: | Joe Conneely | |
| Date/Time: | 08/07/13 02:32:00 |
| The removal of the statutory retirement age has yet to fully work its way into the system - my prior firm had a policy of lower retirement ages simply to make places for younger people which did work (indeed many people "retired" before that age to go and do different work or activities). I suspect as I indicated that people in their 60s (maybe even late 50s) will pursue reduced work loads and also different jobs - only time will tell. The danger of people not retiring from long existing jobs (or reducing their hours) is that you will create blockages in the labour system, which long term does not feel like the right answer. The UK labour market has in fact been pretty resilient over the recession as the finance sector; oil production and civil service have undergone major cutbacks. The slack created being taken up in the UK labour market is not explained by immigrants but has been taken up in business services (research, IT, professional services and advertising) which is up 10% pre recession and then followed by health and social care; catering and hotels and manufacturing. The latter interestingly is now a bigger employer and in better financial health than pre-recession. The loser is average wage levels where people in the UK (and also EU generally) are seeing a real decline in growth. Finally on personal pensions, the problem is too many people let the providers and many financial advisers provide bad service for largely unwarranted fees. An earlier posting made reference to the Nationwide I think in this regard. There are now many easy ways and cheaper platforms to allow you to take control of your own personal pension in reducing the long term detrimental impact of such costs. Plus while not perfect the government sponsored website (The Money Advice Service) has a lot of general financial advice and links including pensions. As with the concept of working longer, taking control of ones own financial affairs and destiny is going to become a necessity one suspects. |