Pensions freeze is a slap in the face for GE employees

Bad news for workers at General Electric (GE). The company will be freezing retirement benefits for 20,000 employees in order to cut billions from its pension deficit and debt pile.

GE employee

Bad news for workers at General Electric (GE). The company will be "freezing retirement benefits for 20,000 longtime employees" in order to cut billions from its pension deficit and debt pile, says Peter Wells in the Financial Times. In addition to ending the accumulation of extra benefits for members of its US final-salary scheme, GE will offer to buy out about 100,000 former employees who are members of the scheme but haven't yet retired. This is CEO Larry Culp's latest move in an ongoing effort to turn the group around.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri