The Government was today urged to make it easier for young workers to take pension contributions with them when they change jobs.

The call follows research showing that youngsters were facing "pension poverty".

The TUC said fewer than one in four young men and one in three young women were in occupational pension schemes.

Allowing young people to transfer pension contributions when they changed jobs would encourage them to save for the future, it said.

Workers and employers should be compelled to pay into an occupational scheme to tackle the "pensions time bomb".

TUC assistant general secretary Kay Carberry said: "Too few young people realise that a failure to save now will cost them dearly in their old age.

"It's easy to understand why most young people don't have pensions. Many don't earn much, they might have run up huge debts from university, be keen to start a family or get on the property ladder.

"Saving for a distant retirement 40 years or more away is hardly going to be a priority. But young people who haven't started pensions early in their working life are storing up problems for themselves later."

The Government was urged to launch a publicity campaign warning young people of the dangers of failing to take out a pension.

Friday October 24, 2003