COVID-19: Early retirement doubles in Saudi Arabia
Figures show 33 people per day retired early in first quarter of 2021
Abu Dhabi: Remote working and freedom from the daily commute has unlocked more leisure time, as well as raising the possibility of moving further away from the workplace — taking some over-50s a step closer to the kind of life they want to lead in retirement.
On the flip side, rising redundancies mean some may be bounced into an early retirement they neither wanted nor could afford.
Early retirement cases in private sector businesses in Saudi Arabia more than doubled during the past year, after recording an annual increase of 218 per cent, data of the Saudi Social Insurance Organisation showed.
Early retirement cases have shot up from 955 to 3,040, during Q1 this year, bringing the average daily cases to 33.
Data showed that retirements recorded by social insurance increased during the first quarter of 2021 by 30.2 per cent to 7,846 from to 7,846 compared to the same quarter of 2020.
The number of men, who were forced into early retirement increased by 221 per cent, while the number of women increased by 50 per cent.
The data revealed that while the number of timely retired men increased by 43.2 per cent to 6,522 from 4,553, the retired women decreased by 11 per cent, to 1,325 from 1,471.