SENIOR LIVING
The Old Mutual SA Retirement Gauge 2022 takes an authoritative , in-depth look at the retirement savings habits and retirement readiness of South Africans belonging to umbrella funds through their employer ’ s occupational schemes .
The gauge covered about 490,000 active members saving for retirement in retirement schemes set up by about 6 300 employers of all sizes and across all industries .
According to Andrew Davison , the head of advice at Old Mutual Corporate Consultants ( OMCC ), the data collated in the ‘ Old Mutual SA Retirement Gauge 2022 ’, shows that many South Africans are bucking the retirement savings crisis .
“ The cold data revealed that there are some people taking the challenge seriously and doing a lot of positive things to turn the proverbial ship around on their savings status . Despite the sample of those people being small , they demonstrate that saving enough for retirement is entirely possible . We just need to get more people to do the same .”
1 . Save for longer
Members who had long service with an employer managed to accumulate up to eight times their annual salary , on average , after 35 years of service .
The fact is that only a fraction of employees remain with the same employer for that length of time . Many withdraw their pension or provident fund savings when they change jobs , pay the tax and spend the balance and start at zero balance with their new employer .
So , there is leakage out of the system every time people change jobs . One way to achieve a financially secure retirement is to have long service with one employer , but the other alternative is to preserve savings from different employers by leaving them in the same fund , transferring them to the new employer ’ s fund or investing in a preservation fund
168 NOV 2022 SA Real Estate Investor Magazine