Over the past 25 years, the pension industry has seen many significant shifts, from defined benefit to defined contribution, from accumulation to decumulation and from education and guidance to financial planning, said Chris Walker, regional vice-president of business development and investment strategy at Desjardins Insurance, during a session at Benefits Canada’s 2025 DC Plan Summit. […]
An article on an Ontario court’s decision that an employer’s return-to-workplace request amounted to constructive dismissal was the most-read story on BenefitsCanada.com this past week. Here are the top five human resources, benefits, pension and investment stories of the last week: 1. Ontario court rules employer’s return-to-workplace request amounts to constructive dismissal 2. Nestle, Unifor […]
Three-quarters (76 per cent) of U.K. employers offer alternative cash benefits to high earners in lieu of pension contributions, according to a new survey by WTW. From April 6, 2024, the U.K. government abolished the lifetime allowance from pension tax legislation, limiting the total amount of tax-free cash an individual can receive to a maximum […]
Pension plans play an important economic role by distributing billions of dollars annually to retirees, who then spend this money in the economy while enjoying a certain level of financial comfort. Businesses providing goods and services, in turn, purchase products and services from various suppliers, who do the same with their own suppliers, and so […]
Social media is breathing new life into employers’ pension communications, helping to make the benefit resonate with different audiences and offering organizations a far wider footprint than traditional channels. In some ways, the coronavirus pandemic was one of the key drivers of increasing the use of social media in workplace communications, says Jeff Pekar, director […]
The aggregate funded percentage of all U.S. multi-employer defined benefit pension plans reached 97 per cent as at Dec. 31, 2024, an increase from 89 per cent a year prior, according to a new report from consulting firm Milliman Inc. The report, which analyzes the funded status of all U.S. multi-employer DB plans through their […]
While nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of U.K. employees say it’s important their employer offers a pension plan that’s invested according to environmental, social and governance factors, half (47 per cent) say they don’t know whether their pension is invested in this way, according to a new survey by Scottish Widows. The survey, which polled […]
Global pensions assets rose by 4.9 per cent as of December 2024, reaching a record US$58.5 trillion, led by growth in the largest defined contribution pension markets, according to a report by WTW’s Thinking Ahead Institute. Indeed, it found among the seven largest pension markets globally — Canada, the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands, Switzerland, […]
Large Canadian pension funds can create and capture value in financial markets by achieving scale in strategic markets, vertically integrating parts of the value chain and reducing fee drag, coordinating key stakeholder groups and creating internal synergies within their organization, according to a new report published in the Journal of Alternative Investments. It found venture […]
More than half (58 per cent) of Canadian workers aged 40 to 60 say financial stress is their No. 1 worry, according to a new survey by the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan. The survey, which polled 2,800 full-time employees, found six in 10 (60 per cent) respondents said they thought about their current financial […]