Retiring comfortably equals having a lot of money in the bank. A new HR study by Towers Watson reveals that about two out of three workers would be willing to give up some pay for guaranteed retirement benefits. At the peak of the recession, circa 2009, this number was about 20% lower.
The Towers Watson survey polled over 5,000 full-time employees. Approximately 2/3 of the population said they were satisfied with their company’s sponsored retirement plans, which is a huge improvement from 2009. With this said, the number of employees who are satisfied with their health care benefits have declined greatly. This downward trend can be attributed, according to HR experts, to ageing workers whose health may be deteriorating. Overall costs of living have also increased greatly, while these benefit programs have basically remained the same.
While some workers would be willing to sacrifice some of their salary to receive better retirement services, these people weren’t willing to do the same in exchange for better health services. Reasoning for this is possibly because retirement security became ever more important during the recession when many employees decided to prematurely tap into their 401-k funds as a means for survival.
One human resource professional also said that this thought pattern could be contributed to recent cutbacks in DB plans.