More pensioners than before are working while drawing their pension, according to a survey published on Thursday by the Finnish pension agency Keva.
Almost one in five (18%) of those who participated in the survey said that they work either full-time or part-time in addition to their pension. That’s up from 14 percent in a corresponding survey conducted last year.
Five percent of retirees said they work full-time while 13 percent work part-time. The highest rates of post-retirement work were in Central Ostrobothnia in the west and Finnish Lapland in the north.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of respondents, 19 percent, said they had looked for a job since retiring. That was up sharply from 12 percent a year ago.
Nearly one third of respondents said they would be ready to register as a jobseeker with a placement service. The highest levels of interest in re-entering the workforce were in Lapland and North Karelia, in the east of the country. There, the unemployment rate has risen this autumn to nearly 13 percent.
Some 4,000 Finns answered the survey commissioned by Keva between September and October.
Keva is responsible for pensions of public sector workers in state, municipal, and state church positions, a total of 1.3 million employees.
Pension growth outpacing wages
Meanwhile pensions are now rising faster than salaries thanks to the occupational pension index. Next year, occupational pensions are set to increase by 5.7 percent.
The situation is unusual, as the rise in pensions has only exceeded that of wages a few times since 1980. The right-wing government has said it has no plans to cut pensions, regardless of other economic adjustment measures.
That has sparked debate. For example, opposition MP Atte Harjanne (Green) suggested last week that the increase in pensions could be slowed down by one percentage point to boost equality between generations.
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