Major accountancy company PricewaterhouseCoopers surveyed some 1,000 companies and found that final-salary pension schemes are shutting down, if they haven’t already.
Of the 1,000 companies surveyed, 16 per cent of the respondents had already closed their final salary pension scheme to current members. Unfortunately, in the current climate final-salary pension schemes are viewed as being ‘unsustainable.’
The unions were against the closures, with TUC general secretary Brendan Barber reportedly commenting: "Companies are using the recession as an excuse to make savage cuts in pensions . But recessions are short term, and pensions are long term investments that can ride ups and downs in the economy. Too many attacks on pensions are no more than companies walking away from a long-term commitment to their staff, and are part of the same short-term profit-seeking that gave us the financial crash."




