2020 has been a year of unknowns and going into 2021 not much has changed. Going into retirement during this time is stressful, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s a time to look forward and aspire to. If you’re planning to retire in 2021 this article will go through three trends that will impact retirement plans throughout the year.
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1. Financial Wellness
Employer-sponsored financial wellness programs are likely to see an increase in 2021. Oak Financial Planner state that this is thanks to COVID-19 putting a heightened focus on our personal financial situations. Many employees aren’t comfortable with what they are seeing and have ask for help from employers. This has already seen an increase in financial wellness programs. These programs provide information, education, and support for employee’s day-to-day personal finance needs. Furthermore, these new financial wellness programs are including online, telephone and even live counselling for financial wellness.
2. Increasing retirement Age
The age at which we are choosing to retire is increasing. There are a few studies that show how the average retirement age has been increasing from early 60s into the mid 60s (65). With the economic uncertainty brought on by the COVD-19 pandemic this is expected to increase even more over the next few years. As economies across the globe are struggling to survive workers are becoming more and more reluctant to leave the workforce altogether and be at the mercy of the economy’s fluctuations. While the pandemic may have caused some forced retirements, those over the age of 50 looking for work has increased dramatically over the past year and those in the workforce wanting to retire and hesitant to take the next step with all this uncertainty.
3. Semi-retirement on the rise
Following on from point two, there will be a rise in those that are semi-retired. These people are transitioning into retirement but aren’t ready to leave the workforce for good due to a number of reasons. Traditionally, this has been people looking for less stressful jobs but still require and feel the need for constant income. Going into 2021 we expect this trend to increase as workers are looking for financial stability at a time where they would have expected to be 100% removed from the workforce.
these are a few of the trends that will impact retirement plans in 2021, a year that we have all hoped would be a turning point. A year that we expected to see a “return to normal”, but we are yet to recover fully from the pandemic, and this has impact a lot of workers retirement plans.
