Over 43% of pensioners on less than 1,000 euros - update

(ANSA) - Rome, October 14 - Around 6.8 million retired Italians, 43.5% of the total, had monthly pensions of less than 1,000 euros in 2013, national social security agency INPS said Tuesday. It added that over 2.1 million pensioners had a monthly income of less than 500 euros a month, while almost 70% were on less than 1,500 euros a month. The figures were contained in Istat's annual "social balance sheet" report.
    The report also revealed that the number of public sector workers fell by 64,491, or 2.1%, in 2013 with respect to 2012.
    It said the number of private-sector employees fell by 140,195, 1.1%, in the same period. INPS said spending on benefits increased by 1.982 billion euros (15.8%) in 2013 to climb to 14.514 billion. The agency added that it registered a deficit of 8.7 billion euros in 2013 between contributions and spending, an improvement of around one billion euros on 2012.