The retirement conundrum

NEXT year, about 100,000 workers who should have retired at 55 in the second-half of 2013 will finally leave the workforce at 60 years old.

In other words, after a period of five years where zero mandatory retirements took place – within the private sector at least – we will have some 100,000 workers leaving their jobs.

Recall, within the private sector, the retirement age was upped to 60 from 55 in 2013, when the Minimum Retirement Age Act kicked in.

Within the civil service, the minimum retirement age in the government service was increased gradually, from 55 to 56 in 2001, 58 in 2008 and eventually to 60 in 2012.

Exactly, what kind of implications can be expected from the sudden influx of retirees? Equally important, what are some of the measures that can be taken to mitigate the negative impact, if any?

Malaysian Employers Federation executive director Datuk Shamsuddin Bardan says firstly, this will result in the re-opening of the replacement market, which has not been available in the last five years – but only to a certain extent.
“Every year, there are about 200,000 new graduates entering the job market with another 300,000 school leavers also entering the workforce, but this (retirees leaving their jobs) may not necessarily translate into increasing chances of these graduates getting jobs.

“Companies have become very careful in hiring now, and they may not fill up the positions (that the retirees will leave vacant) due to the prevailing weak economic conditions,” Shamsuddin tells StarBizWeek.

Will this affect productivity?

Yeah Kim Leng, a professor of economics at Sunway University Business School, says whether or not productivity will be affected is more company-specific than anything else.

“Companies will need to weigh out the cost versus benefit in their hiring decisions,” he says.

Having said that, it is difficult to quantify intangible costs and benefits.

The current unemployment rate in Malaysia stands at about 3.5%, translating to about 600,000 people being unemployed.

“The question is whether the retirees have enough retirement savings,” Yeah says.

To be sure, although the mandatory retirement is at 60, the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) withdrawal is still maintained at 55.

“What this (ageing population) could also mean is that the dependency ratio, which measures the number of dependants one has, will start to increase and on a macro level, this could pose a greater burden on the overall economy.”

According to Yeah’s back of the envelope calculations, to retire comfortably in the Klang Valley, one would need about RM5,000 a month, RM60,000 year or a total of RM1.2mil just for living expenses, assuming one life to about 80 years old. This is also on the assumption that there are no more debts to be serviced.

“If the lower-income people under the B40 category can move toward the middle-income group (M40), the financial burden of those who are being depended on will lessen as time goes by.”

According to Socio Economic Research Centre executive director Lee Heng Guie, the demographic shift towards a higher proportion of the ageing population which he describes as “unprecedented”, threatens to impact productivity, economic output and economic welfare which requires a social, political and economic change at all levels.

Firstly, the vast numbers of experienced workers who retire from the labour force will cause capital to become scarce and result in reduced savings in pension funds, Lee says.

However, Sunway’s Yeah says that pension funds like the EPF already have surplus savings, which means that this is hardly an issue.