Can a 16 year old join work pension scheme?

BrawBrichtNicht

Hi. I’m new to the forum so I hope I’m doing this correctly. 

My soon to be 17 year old son has a part-time job with a well known craft supply retailer. He asked if he could join the pension scheme and they said he couldn’t. His core contract is for 12 hours per week at £12.21 per hour. He also does some extra shifts during school holidays. We estimate he will earn approx £7k - £8k per year. 

He is keen to join a pension scheme as soon as possible and take advantage of the employer contribution of 4% and he is also happy to contribute up to 5%. 

Are they allowed to refuse him joining the scheme? 

I understand that he may not meet the criteria for auto-enrolment due to his age but if he’s earning more than the minimum threshold surely a request to join the scheme should be granted? 

sammyjammy

He absolutely can voluntarily join the pension scheme, in that you are correct, however the employer only has to contribute to that pension if the following applies:

Your employer does not have to contribute to your pension if you earn these amounts or less:

• £520 a month
• £120 a week
• £480 over 4 weeks

Workplace pensions: Joining a workplace pension - GOV.UK

BrawBrichtNicht

Thank you for your response. 

I will ask my son to follow up with his employer and make another request to join. 

Marcon

There's a nice neat table here (applies to all employees, not just those whose employers use Nest): https://www.nestpensions.org.uk/schemeweb/nest/my-nest-pension/joining-nest/joining-through-my-employer.html

JoeCrystal

Can I say that it is so encouraging seeing a 16yo making a start on his retirement savings so early! 😁 Just make sure that he got enough for his short term and long term spending as well! Another good habit to get into is when you get a pay rise, increase the contribution rate as well.

BrawBrichtNicht

Thanks for all the help so far on this. 

We’ve just checked the correspondence my son had with his employer and it seems they have an auto-enrolment scheme with Nest and then a separate scheme with Aviva. In the Aviva booklet they sent him, it states that he would need to be 18 years old and have worked there for 12 months before being able to join that one. 

With the Nest one, the employer said both they and my son would only be able to contribute a percentage of earnings above the first £520 earned per month to the pension scheme so they advised it wouldn’t be worth his while to do this. 

It seems there’s very little incentive / encouragement for young people to start contributing to pensions.  

TheMilkmansDad

BrawBrichtNicht said:

Thanks for all the help so far on this. 

We’ve just checked the correspondence my son had with his employer and it seems they have an auto-enrolment scheme with Nest and then a separate scheme with Aviva. In the Aviva booklet they sent him, it states that he would need to be 18 years old and have worked there for 12 months before being able to join that one. 

With the Nest one, the employer said both they and my son would only be able to contribute a percentage of earnings above the first £520 earned per month to the pension scheme so they advised it wouldn’t be worth his while to do this. 

It seems there’s very little incentive / encouragement for young people to start contributing to pensions.  

I bet they did - I would advice you to reply with "thank you for your advice but I would like to join anyway"

Marcon

BrawBrichtNicht said:

With the Nest one, the employer said both they and my son would only be able to contribute a percentage of earnings above the first £520 earned per month to the pension scheme so they advised it wouldn’t be worth his while to do this. 

They are wrong. Your son can make contributions based on his whole earnings if he wishes to do so. The employer can choose to make contributions only on 'band earnings' (which means disregarding the first £520 earned each month even if your son contributes on his whole pay).