Unretirement and what it means for you

Going back to work after retirement

There are different reasons why some people decide to return to work. If you’re thinking about it, there are a few things to be aware of.

What does ‘unretirement’ mean anyway?

Unretirement is a growing trend where people continue to work past, through, or after retirement.

Not everyone wants to work in their retirement years. Many Cbus members need to stop working because of illness, injury, needing to care for others, or they simply can’t continue to do physical work.

In some cases, retiring earlier than expected could also be a reason why you might want to go back to work after retirement.

What’s driving us to work

The average Australian now lives to 81 - 85 years old¹. We’re living longer, and this affects how we spend retirement, and whether we have the money to afford it.

According to a survey by ASFA, the path to retirement is different for everyone:

Staying busy and engaged: about 1 in 4 workers aged 65 or over intend to keep working to stay occupied, active, and socially engaged
Financial need: more than 1 in 10 say they intend to continue working out of financial necessity².

What this means for your super and retirement income

There’s a lot to think about, and you may need to get advice. But here are few things to start.

If you’re receiving the Age Pension

Your income could affect your pension payments. You need to let Centrelink know about any extra income within 14 days.
Your income needs to be less than $218 per fortnight (or $380 for couples) before your pension payments are affected.³
The Work Bonus helps reduce the amount of employment income that counts towards the income test for your pension. If you’re eligible you could earn $300 a fortnight from working, without affecting your income test for the pension.

If you have a fully retired super income stream account

You can’t add super to an income stream account. However, you can either:

keep your super in the income stream and open a new super account for employer contributions or
transfer your super income stream back to a super account. This will have tax implications.

What’s right for you will depend on a range of things, but we’re here to help.