Forty percent of employees reject pension schemes despite employers’ contributions pledges

Four in 10 employees are turning down pension schemes where their contributions are matched by their employers, research has revealed.

The statistic was found by analysis of 60,000 companies with more than 1 million employees by pensions administrator DC Link.

It comes as a blow for the government’s proposed Personal Accounts scheme to get people saving for their retirement.

Personal Accounts would see employee’s contributions matched by a combination of employer payments and tax relief. The government is desperate for people to supplement their increasingly insufficient state pensions.

Last month, British Chambers of Commerce director-general David Frost warned that the Personal Accounts scheme was doomed to failure.

“The government has too high expectations [of the system],” he said. “Employees do not trust pensions.

“We have members who have offered to put in 6% for a 3% contribution from employees – and the workers don’t take it up.”

The DC Link research found that almost 20% of UK workers in defined contribution pension schemes were making the minimum payments allowed.

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Only half of workers aged between 20 and 30 were taking the maximum contribution on offer from their employer.