Topical issues

One third of 63–80-year-old retirees work or are interested in working while drawing an old-age pension, a recent study (in Finnish only) by the Finnish Centre for Pensions shows. Many retirees would like to work to get something meaningful to do. However, retirees find that their age might be an obstacle to working in retirement. The analysis based on a survey was published in the social policy journal Yhteiskuntapolitiikka.

The Finnish Centre for Pensions has been awarded a Certificate of Merit by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) within the ISSA Good Practice Awards programme. The certificate was granted to the Finnish Centre for Pensions for its web service that instructs employers on how to insure their workers in international employment situations.

The printed pension record posted to private sector workers contains information from only the most recent years. Data spanning the worker’s entire working history is available on the online pension record.

Most pension funds included in our comparison reached a real return of 10–20 per cent. The Swedish AP funds, part of the public pension system, performed particularly well, scoring highest in all compared categories. The year was favourable also for Finnish pension investors, particularly for Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company.

Partial old-age pensions have been selected mainly by wage earners with an average income. As the retirement age rises, the pension cutting effect of the partial old-age pension increases. The increasing cutting effect of early retirement is already showing in starting old-age pensions.

Employer, are you employing a worker from Ukraine? Remember to take out earnings-related pension insurance for the worker.

Nearly one third of all pensions in Finland are higher than 2,000 euros per month. Every third Finn receives a monthly pension of less than 1,250 euros. The gender gap in pensions remained unchanged.

Pension assets increased by 33 billion euros last year, particularly due to a robust return on pension providers’ investments. Pension contribution income also developed favourably due to the growing wage sum. Low inflation curbed expenditure.

The earnings-related pension field and Tax Administration will launch two joint trials. In both of them, 25,000 citizens will receive a message via the MyTax service. The message encourages the recipient to check their pension record via the web service of their pension provider. The customer is steered to the web service via a joint steering service.

Although the employment rate in Finland has exceeded its pre-corona level, the number of long-term unemployed has not improved. Many of those who lost their jobs during the pandemic are still unemployed. Focus should be put on the hard-to-employ, particularly those with disabilities and immigrants. A state-owned special assignment company Työkanava has been established to create meaningful jobs for people with disabilities.