Eight in ten older Polish workers may retire earlier: finance minister

But Mateusz Morawiecki said the government would work on incentives to keep such employees on the labour market.

He added that earlier retirement rights would cost Poland an estimated PLN 2.6 billion this year.

From 1 October, women will be entitled to retire at 60 and men at 65.

Lowering the age of retirement was a key pledge by the conservative Law and Justice ahead of October 2015 elections which saw the party sweep to power on a wave of spending and welfare promises.

The previous government, let by the Civic Platform (PO) party, in 2013 introduced a gradual increase of the retirement age to 67 for both men and women.

“Empirical data... indicates that 80-83 percent of eligible people will take up the opportunity to retire early in October,” said Morawiecki, who is also Deputy Prime Minister and Development Minister.

But he added that last week he met Family, Labour and Social Policy Minister Elżbieta Rafalska and agreed that they would work on "incentives for employees to remain on the labour market".

"It is not the case, of course, that we want to discourage citizens from exercising this privilege [to retire earlier], but rather to encourage those who still have the strength and will to work to do so," Morawiecki added.

"We hope that after these incentives are introduced, the number of people retiring will fall to 60-70 percent and about 35 percent of people entitled to earlier retirement will remain on the labour market," he said.

“That would be a big relief both for the labour market and for the state budget."

(pk)

Source: PAP