Even Employees with Pension Plans May Not Have a Pension...
I have noticed, in my experience, that if an employer offers a pension plan (a fast-disappearing retirement benefit virtually unheard of by anyone younger than 40) that a potential employee will often jump at the chance to work for such an employer.
The potential employee takes no thought except to ask what type of retirement benef
its are offered.
This is very short-sighted in my opinion.
What they should do is request a copy of the pension plan and review it to see just what type of compensation they will be entitled to at retirement. After scrutiny they might find, for example, that a company offers a defined contribution of say 3% of company profits for pensions but has not been profitable in the last 17 years, revealing that there will not be much of any money in the pension fund when it comes time to retire.
My advice: always request a copy of any company benefits offered at the time an employer makes an offer. Read and study them. Know the rules surrounding those benefits.
One of my clients decided to take this advice and discovered that because his company had not been profitable in seven of the last 10 years that he was not going to be getting any money at retirement. This spurred him to press for a raise, which is got. He then took the difference between his old salary and new and established is own retirement fund. Smart move on his part.