Saudi Gazette report

DAMMAM — As many as 90,333 government employees have decided to retire early with some of them throwing the gauntlet after working between 5-10 years, Makkah daily said on Saturday quoting a statistical report for the year 2018 by the General Authority for Statistics (GaStat).

The authority said the retirees consisted of 84,114 men representing 93 percent and 6,219 women.

An expert in early retirement attributed the phenomenon to a number of factors including the inability to work or sickness.

Maj. Gen. Saleh Al-Qurashi (Rtd.), chairman of the private establishment for retirees in Riyadh, said those who retire after working for few years only do this mostly due to physical or psychological disease.

"An early retiree might have obtained the job at an old age, that he/she wants to run the family business or that one might have got a better job at the private sector," he said.

Al-Qurashi said many people do not have the correct culture of retirement so they do not have any plans for what they will be doing after retirement.

He said these people are not usually aware of the consequences of early retirement and/or are not sure if the pension will be enough to sustain them and their families.

Al-Qurashi said some of the retirees may suffer from depression due to loneliness after retirement not only because their income shrinks but also because they lose interaction with their old colleagues.

"It is important that a retiree prepares him/herself very well for the after-retirement era before he or she takes the decision to step down," he said.

Qurashi advised the retirees to involve themselves in voluntary work but said people should not wait until they are 60 or above to retire.

"If a person retires at an old age he will feel the brunt of the consequences of retirement especially if his health is not okay," he said.