Retirement is little more than a distant prospect for over 75% of small business owners, new research suggests.
Less than a third of business owners are paying into a company pension scheme and a third said they had been forced to cut jobs during the past six months, according to a poll by Clifton Asset Management (CAM).
CAM director Anthony Carty said: “It is clear that retirement is becoming ever more elusive for the vast majority of SME owners, and out of the question altogether for a large minority.
“While there may be cause for optimism in terms of the number of employers planning job cuts, there is a fear that we may have yet to see the full impact of the recession on employment numbers, and certainly the situation in regard to company pension schemes is deeply worrying.”
The research also found that nine out of 10 business owners do not see any benefit to applying for support under the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) scheme. Carty said this suggested businesses continue to feel abandoned, by both Whitehall and the banks, in their ‘hour of need’.
He added: “It is totally unacceptable that so few businesses have received any kind of financial relief via the EFG, or that so many have no confidence in its ability to deliver.
“We know from our own experience that accessing the scheme is proving hugely frustrating for many SMEs and that despite the government’s protestations, the freeze in bank lending to businesses shows no signs of a significant thaw.”
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2009
