Deloitte is reportedly in talks over its proposal to slash UK pension benefits in an ongoing effort to shore up cash.
According to Sky News, the accountancy giant has now launched a consultation on the proposed move.
It is now considering whether to reduce the maximum employer pension contribution from 12% of an employee’s salary to 4.5%.
According to reports, the firm would save “tens of millions of pounds” in a 12-month period if the proposal was to go ahead.
However, the move would affect the majority of Deloitte’s 19,000 UK staff , though certain equity partners are not eligible to join its pension scheme.
A Deloitte spokesperson told Sky News: “We’ve been closely monitoring and managing the COVID-19 situation and supporting our people and clients is a priority. We are doing all we can to protect jobs and our business in the coming months.
“As part of this we have started a consultation with our people on temporarily reducing our maximum employer pension contributions.”
News of the proposed cuts comes only weeks after Deloitte announced that partner annual earnings would be slashed by around 20%.
In order to “focus on business resilience and the long term impact of the current crisis”, it also announced that there would be no annual salary increases this year.
News of these cutbacks were revealed in a blog post by Richard Houston, senior partner and chief executive at Deloitte.
In the post, Houston said that the actions in question have “not been taken lightly”, but they are the “right thing to do so that we can protect jobs and our business for the foreseeable future”.
