Pensions future looks grim for private sector

PRIVATE sector employees, it’s time to quit the job and go to work for the Government. That’s if you want a decent pension to retire on.

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) this week became the latest body to ring alarm bells about the pensions disaster that awaits people who are in their twenties and thirties when they retire.

But these bells sounded different. The system’s unfair, chirped the ESRI, but not in the way we might have expected. Instead, it figures the Government is spending too much on tax breaks to encourage private sector workers to look after their pensions for themselves.