HUNDREDS of thousands of the region's workers have been urged to join a looming pensions revolution - or face the misery of "poverty" in retirement.

Within days, Britain's biggest companies will start automatically enrolling staff into new workplace pensions designed to guarantee a nest egg for the staggering 11m people who fail to save.

The little-known scheme follows a disastrous slump in the numbers signed up to workplace pensions - including a fall of 300,000, in the private sector, across this region in just 14 years.

It means up to one million workers the North-East and Yorkshire face living on just the basic state pension - currently £5,587 a year.

But staff will be allowed to opt out of "auto-enrolment" - and up to one-third are expected to do so, when they find their take-home pay has dipped.

Now Steve Webb, the pensions minister, has issued a stark warning that workers who drop out will be turning their backs on their last chance of preventing their retirement income "falling off a cliff".

The Liberal Democrat told The Northern Echo: "Without this, millions of people will get a shock when they retire - in poverty, if we're not careful.

"They will either have to work much longer - because they won't be able to to afford to retire - or they will have a big slump in their living standards.

"We know, human nature being what it is, that people will put it off , they'll find it baffling or daunting - they just won't sort it out for themselves. We are taking all the hassle away."

The key facts of the scheme are:

* Anyone aged between 22 and state pension age - and earning more than £8,105, in 2012-13 - will be enrolled automatically.

* It will begin, next month, for the largest firms (more than 50,000
workers) - but not apply to small employers (fewer than 50) until June 2015, at the earliest.

* Every worker must contribute one per cent of gross earnings, initially - rising to four per cent by October 2018.

* The employer will contribute three per cent, which - with one per cent tax relief - will make total contributions of eight per cent.

* Anyone can opt out - but they will lose the employer contributions. And, to encourage saving, they will be re-enrolled every three years.

But there are fears that - in the middle of an economic slump, with millions struggling to cope with rising bills - the scheme is starting at the worst time.

And Mr Webb acknowledged that employers may cut future pay rises, saying:
"A firm may say 'I would have put your pay up by two per cent, but I will now put it up by one per cent - and put the other one per cent in the pension'."