A quarter of 18 to 34 year olds would opt out of the Government’s proposed National Pension Savings Scheme in order to solve short-term financial issues, according to JP Morgan Invest.

The financial education arm of global financial services group, JP Morgan, carried out research in this age group to assess attitudes to pension planning. It revealed that 20% of those questioned admitted to never having thought about pensions at all, despite 49% saying they were worried about funding their retirement.

JP Morgan Invest has urged employers to provide more financial education for their staff to ensure they understand the implications of the reforms laid out in the Government’s recent Pension White Paper.

Director of JP Morgan Invest, Jonathan Watts-lay, said: “The statistics show that young professionals have a poor grasp of exactly how their long-term financial security is going to be impacted by their lack of pension planning. UK employers have an important role to play to help their workforce understand the full implications.”