Pension delays in Piemonte leave thousands of retirees waiting

In the Piedmont region of Italy, thousands of new retirees are reporting that their first pension payments are arriving months, and in some cases up to a year, later than the legally defined windows. The most affected groups include former public‑sector employees, workers with mixed careers and those in complex pension schemes such as journalists.

Union leader Franco Lo Grasso of UIL Pensionati Piemonte attributes the bottleneck to a shortage of INPS staff – the regional office has 1,263 employees in 2024, 97 fewer than the previous year – and to incomplete handovers and insufficient training for handling intricate cases. Data from the regional INPS office show that out of 1,313,778 pensioners, 69.2% of private‑sector cases and 72.4% of public‑sector cases are processed within 15 days, while only 49.5% of special‑fund cases meet that target.

The delays are causing direct economic hardship for families that rely on the pension as their primary income. Unions are calling for technical tables with INPS to accelerate critical files, introduce priority rules for cases without any other income, and expand digital assistance for applicants.