Having employees able to retire “on time” is a win/win scenario for both employees and employers. In a perfect world, all employees would be able to begin enjoying their retirement years when they wish, and employers would, therefore, be better able to manage workforce resources and costs. However, in today’s society, many employees are expected to delay their retirements beyond their desired retirement ages due to financial concerns, such as having inadequate savings to sustain them throughout their retirement. To quantify the impact of delayed retirements on employers’ costs, Prudential conducted research1 using workforce composition and cost assumptions based on national averages for private sector workers. The research indicates that a one-year increase in average retirement age results in:
- An incremental cost of over $50,000 for an individual whose retirement is delayed.2 This represents the cost differential between the retiring employee and a newly hired employee.
- Incremental annual workforce costs of about 1.0%–1.5% for an entire workforce.3 For an employer with 3,000 employees and workforce costs of $200 million, a one-year delay in retirement age may cost about $2-3 million.
To put this in perspective, we compared the cost of delayed retirement to other types of workforce costs,4 and found that, on an aggregate national basis, a delay in retirement may
