More than 300,000 workers have been automatically enrolled into a workplace pension scheme since October 2012, according to figures published by The Pensions Regulator today.
The first official update on take-up of the new system reveals that, as of the end of March, 84 employers had confirmed they had met their auto-enrolment duties by registering with the regulator.
Between them, those organisations employ almost 2.2 million people, of whom just over half were already members of a qualifying pension scheme at the staging date and a further 308,000 people have since been auto-enrolled. An additional 117,000 were eligible for membership of the organisation's defined benefit or hybrid pension scheme prior to the staging date and as such have had their auto-enrolment deferred.
The regulator stressed that the figures did not take into account employers whose auto-enrolment staging date was after December 2012 because companies have four months from their staging date to register their details with them. The regulator does not collect data on opt-out rates.
Charles Counsell, executive director of automatic enrolment at The Pensions Regulator, commented: 'The country's largest employers - with more than two million workers between them - have met their duties under workplace pensions law.
'As a direct result of automatic enrolment, hundreds of thousands more people across the UK are now saving into a workplace pension, joining the 1.2 million of their colleagues who were already in a qualifying scheme. Some of these will have been contractually enroled by consent into a qualifying scheme prior to their employers' staging dates.
He added: 'The regulator continues its work to provide the vast numbers of employers [that are] still to stage with the information they and their advisers need so they can comply with the legislation and help millions more workers save for retirement in the coming years.'
The Pensions Regulator plans to publish updates on auto-enrolment registration on a monthly basis from now on.
