Employers should encourage employees to start retirement planning early

AS A trainer with MoneySense’s Institute for Financial Literacy (IFL) for almost eight years, I have taught dozens of retirement planning classes to hundreds of people. One common feature? An overwhelming majority of participants are not prepared for life after full-time work.

This gels with virtually all surveys into retirement adequacy. For instance, OCBC’s Financial Wellness Index findings, published last November, showed that although more people are investing, retirement planning is still a problem.

The survey found that only 54 per cent of respondents have started making financial plans for retirement, down six percentage points from 2023, while 24 per cent said they either intend to start or started planning for their retirement only in their 50s or later, which realistically, does not leave much time to accumulate sufficient funds.