Historically, pensions have been a problem for traditional
industries such as manufacturing. Young, dynamic industries such as
the technology sector have perhaps felt rather smug that they are
not embroiled in the complexities that surround pension provision,
focusing instead on remuneration based on pay, bonuses and share
incentives, and expect employees, who tend to have relatively high
mobility between jobs, will provide for their own retirement.
However, this is changing with the government's
"automatic enrolment" regime, which may be the biggest
change ever to the law on workplace pension provision. All
employers will be required to put their employees into a pension
scheme, make contributions to it and (if they choose not to cover
all the cost) deduct contributions into the scheme from
employee's pay. Employees can opt out after the event, but must
be put back in and given the chance to opt out again every three
years.
