Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Rods2]

The good news is that a record number of people are now employed in the UK. The bad news is that the number of full time jobs has decreased and the number of part time has increased. This trend of more part time jobs is not only happening here but in the US as well. There has also been an increase in the number of self-employed but there are no figures for how many hours on average they work. I have heard that Job Centres are forcing people that get casual work to register as self employed and they then save paying the job seekers allowance in gaps between jobs! 

Now some bad news. I'm sure many of you are aware that from the 1st October that new pension rules apply for large companies having to enroll employees into a pension scheme. They initially have to contribute 1% of the employees pay with this increasing to 3% by 2016. Over this time the size of companies that have to enroll employees will get progressively smaller until they all have to. Now the big employers have found a loop hole and a way to save money. If they pay an employee less than £7425 per annum, they don't have to enroll them into a pension scheme, which will eventually save them 3%. Now for companies that employ large numbers of low paid workers in the service sector, like the big supermarkets 3% of the payroll is about £100m, so expect to see far fewer full time jobs and many more part time in these service sectors in the future. 

Employees also have to make a contribution. This will mean more money going into saving, when at the moment we need people to be spending that money to get some economic growth! 

Why did Labour bring in this new pension scheme? Because Gordon Brown's 1997 £5bn a year pension grab, changed the UK from Europe's best funded pension system into the worst! 

Personally, since then I have stopped putting any money into a pension as to me the small tax savings are are not worth letting the Government having control over the rules for this money. I decided it was better to put the money into savings. Being forced to buy an anunity at some point with the money is highly dependent upon the income from this. At the moment they are at record lows, with no recovery expected anytime soon. You can get similar returns with dividends from equities and your family get the money when you die, rather than an insurance company.