One of the main concerns of workers when it comes to retiring it is to know if they managed to meet the number of minimum work weeks required by law to be able to access their retirement.

Additionally, it may be possible that the person who is aspiring to this constitutional right has doubts about their situation. in case of having exceeded the required weeks and, therefore, wonder if there are benefits or not in this situation.

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This resulted from the pension and severance fund in which the citizen is affiliated, that is, if the pension system is of a medium premium regime (public), individual savings (private) and a special regimetoIto which belong teachers, police, military and officials at Ecopetrol.

It is worth remembering that there are 1,300 minimum active weeks in the labor market required by the Government to be able to access the pension. Likewise, the minimum age required is 57 years for women and 62 years for men.

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What can happen if the required weeks are exceeded?

In the case of medium premium pension funds, there are cases in which the required weeks are met, but not the minimum age, so you will have to meet both requirements if you want to aspire to liquidation. This means that the person will have to work more weeks than required until reaching the minimum age.

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Since 2005, for every additional 50 weeks to the minimum required, there will be an additional 1.5% increase in your pension contribution, up to a maximum amount of 80%.

“The person will have the obligation to continue contributing until they reach the pension age, what is the advantage? The base income on your 1,300 weeks will be increased by that additional work time. For example, if he contributed 65% of his salary, this could be increased reaching a maximum pension amount between 80 and 70.5%”, explained Alberto Mario Jaramillo Polo, Director of the legal department of the International Legal Center for EL TIME.

At once, a single employee will have the possibility of contributing a maximum of 1,800 weeks, which is equivalent to 80% of the replacement rate. This means that if you have worked beyond this limit, you will not be able to aspire to have that remuneration in your settlement.

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In the case of individual savings funds, people who are enrolled in any of these can make voluntary contributions to their pension, which will be reflected in an increase for your pension allowance at the time you start receiving it.

“Here people retire with the capital that was saved in their individual account. Additionally, it establishes a minimum of 1,150 weeks to be entitled to the pension that is called the minimum guarantee of validity, this differs from the public one because it is measured based on savings”, added Jaramillo.

Under this logic, in private funds there is no specified ceiling, a difference from the public regime, and it will only be your pension savings capacity that will be reflected in your settlement. That is, the more weeks of work, the better conditions your quotas will have.

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