More than 100,000 people working in multiple jobs are missing out on auto-enrolment, despite earning the required amount to qualify, research by Citizens Advice has revealed.
Under current rules, if you earn more than £10,000 a year your employer automatically enrolls you into a workplace pension.
But the £10,000 "earnings threshold" only applies to a single employer, meaning people working for multiple employers often miss out.
According to Citizens Advice's research, released today (22 February), 250,000 people in the UK have several jobs paying less than £10,000 each.
Of those, 106,000 earn more than £10,000 a year in total. But because they do not earn that much at any one job, they are not contributing to a workplace pension through auto-enrolment.
Of that 106,000, the majority (72,000) were women.
Citizens Advice called on the government to address this shortfall in its auto-enrolment review.
Employers clearly recognise the value of contributing to workers’ pensions but are fuzzy on the detail of how this will change over coming yearsGillian GuyIt argued this would not be a difficult sell to employers because most businesses do not view auto-enrolment as a major concern.
Chief executive of Citizens Advice Gillian Guy said too many people were "shut out" of auto-enrolment.
“Many people - particularly women - work several part time jobs, which helps them manage commitments like childcare or study," she said.
"But while in many cases they earn over £10,000, and pay tax on this combined income, they don’t have access to a workplace pension and miss out on the opportunity to save for their retirement."
She said the government needed to "seize the opportunity" of this year’s auto-enrolment review to "pave the way for helping more people get on track with pension savings".
"Employers clearly recognise the value of contributing to workers’ pensions but are fuzzy on the detail of how this will change over coming years. As the review of auto-enrolment progresses and contribution rates increase, changes must be clearly communicated to employers in advance so they can plan for the future of their business."
The research found that only 18 per cent of employers listed auto-enrolment as one of their key concerns for the future.
That was well below the number who said they were most worried about finding good staff (44 per cent) and retaining those staff (36 per cent).
The survey, which covered 1,100 line managers, senior managers and HR managers in public, private and third sector employers based in England and Wales, found 70 per cent saw "some benefit" of paying pension contributions.
Over a third - 37 per cent - said they believed auto-enrolment made their staff feel more valued, 24 per cent said it boosts morale among their workforce, and 13 per cent said it made their staff more productive.
But the research also revealed a lack of knowledge of future increases to contribution rates. When asked how much they would have to pay in 2019, 39 per cent gave the wrong answer, and 55 per cent said they did not know.
Only 6 per cent gave the correct answer of 3 per cent of earnings.
The government has already stated it will focus on bringing more people into the auto-enrolment system. It has indicated it will examine the earnings threshold, as well as looking at ways to bring the self-employed into the regime.
Former pensions minister and Royal London director of policy Sir Steve Webb recently proposed a method of getting the self-employed into a workplace pension.
It involved raising National Insurance contributions for the self-employed by 3 percentage points, and giving people a choice of putting that money into a pension or allowing it to go to Treasury.
james.fernyhough@ft.com
