The ongoing economic downturn is not pushing people to make more effective plans to boost their retirement incomes, it has been claimed.
New analysis from the Pensions Advisory Service suggests that it has actually become "harder" to encourage people to save money in pension plans and other investments.
This is despite a recent poll from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and BlackRock, showing that 56 per cent of people are worried that they will not have a sufficient retirement income.
A majority (55 per cent) also said that they are not currently saving into a company pension scheme and fewer than half saw pensions as the main way they could save for retirement.
This opens the door for other ways of raising a retirement income that do not require prior savings, such as equity release plans.
Jason Collis, workplace team technical advisor at the Pensions Advisory Service, said: "It has become a harder battle to convince people that they should be saving for their retirement, even though it is becoming a bigger issue as people are living longer."
He added: "[Employees] have to take charge of their own retirement personally because they can’t rely on any one employer that they have worked with throughout their life to look after them."
The UK has been in recession for six straight quarters, with output contracting by 0.4 per cent over April-June 2009.
Posted by Claire Ford
