2023-08-16 01:58:31
The pension reform promoted by the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, has not achieved the consensus of all parties -the employers did not sign it-, censured for not guaranteeing the sustainability of the system and for not closing with clarity and impartiality matters as important as early retirement, whether forced or voluntary or with long contribution careers. Employers criticize that the reform places an overload on the productive economy and workers who are about to retire do not see many advantages if they decide to end their working life due to the disadvantages that accumulate.
Social Security has confirmed that, for the first time, the effective retirement age has reached 65, two years more than two decades ago. Despite the fact that the proportion of workers who retire at ordinary age has been increasing and that the percentage of workers who do so early has decreased by nearly four points in eight years, -fundamentally due to the decrease in involuntary early retirements caused by the increase in layoffs during the years of the financial crisis–, there has been an increase in the percentage of voluntary early retirements, from 9.6% of total retirements in 2014 to 22.8% in 2023 (with data to May). According to ministerial sources, this situation would have occurred after the announcement made by the Government of the historic increase in pensions of 8.5% for this year, which generated a wave of early retirements, since thousands of workers on the brink of retirement They decided to take the step and retire early during 2022, since with the increase they compensated for the penalty of the new system.
Precisely one of the objectives set by Escrivá was to reduce the figures for early retirement as much as possible, raising the economic cost. For this, the minister increased the reduction coefficients in the first two months in which it can be requested and in the three months immediately prior to reaching the ordinary age, in addition to raising the reduction between 2.8% and up to 13% according to the number of months in advance. The reform also established incentives for delayed retirement, a modality from which 8.1% of total retirements came until May 2023, when in 2022 they were 5.4% and in 2021, 4.8%.
According to the latest available Social Security data collected by Efe, up to May of this year 137,480 people had retired, of which 61.6% did so at ordinary age or higher with an average of 66 years, compared to 38 .4% who retired early with an average of 63.3 years. The ordinary or legal retirement age is set for 2023 at 66 years and 4 months for those who have less than 37 years and 9 months of contributions, although it remains at 65 for those who reach that contribution period.
With the 2021 reform, the ordinary retirement age has not changed, since it was the 2011 pension reform that regulated the gradual delay of the legal retirement age from 65 to 67 in 2027. The average pension retirement so far in 2023 is 1,293.40 euros for women and 1,605.22 euros for men.
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