The number of workers in auto-enrolment (AE) pension schemes has continued to steadily increase, with another 17,000 workers being auto-enrolled in July 2019.

However, the rise in the number of workers not auto-enrolled in a scheme rose by 29,000 to almost 9.46 million, outweighing the increase in automatically enrolled employees.

According to the latest figures from The Pensions Regulator (TPR), the amount of eligible jobholders auto-enrolled into a scheme rose to 10,124,000, after hitting the 10 million mark in January 2019.

Since hitting the milestone, auto-enrolled workers have been increasing in number by at least 15,000 each month.

However, since January 2019, the monthly increase in non-AE workers has been at least 20,000.

TPR’s figures also showed that number of employers declaring their statistics increased by 14,182 to approximately 1.56 million, while the total number of workers employed at the companies declaring their statistics increased by 68,000, up to around 31.6 million.

In the report, TPR stated: “While the information is the actual data received by us, there will be employers that have reached their staging date, who have automatically enrolled their eligible jobholders and who have not yet completed their declaration.

“The figure for eligible jobholders that have been automatically enrolled is therefore likely to be higher than that shown in this report.”

TPR stepped up its use of AE powers in the first quarter of 2019 by 15 per cent, due to an increasing number of employers reaching their three-year re-enrolment date and who must re-declare compliance to TPR, as well as the continued enforcement activity against employers after the first increase of combined minimum contributions in April 2018 to 5 per cent.

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