This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.Business Times reports that the Momentum Group has flagged a high rate of two-pot system withdrawals among members older than 50. The two-pot system allows people to dip into their savings before they reach retirement age or qualify for early retirement benefits.
The insurance company paid out R5.4bn in claims in the year ended June. Momentum CEO Jeanette Marais said last week that 350,000 people had made withdrawals from their pension, but it was concerning that 19% of those who did so were older than 50 – flagging a possible depletion of funds close to their retirement. “It means that they are 10 or 12 years from retirement, yet they are in such financial distress at the moment that they came and took money out of their pension fund. It is virtually impossible to make up for that capital that they have taken out in the 10 years or so that are left. That remains a concerning issue,” she noted.
Marais also reported that more than 90% of those who made a withdrawal in March had also done so a year earlier, when the two-pot system was first introduced. “If you lose your job and you sit without an income and there is money tied up in a pension fund, you are going to access it because you need to live. I think that is another reality of the unemployment rate in South Africa, and ... the economic rate is not growing so people cannot afford their living standards,” she commented.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Dineo Faku at Business Times (subscriber access only)
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