Workplace pension plan coverage is continuing to decline, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada.
The pension coverage rate, the proportion of all employees covered by a registered pension plan (RPP), was 37.9% in 2013, down from 38.5% the year before, according to data released Wednesday by StatsCan.
Total membership in RPPs was virtually unchanged year over year in 2013 at 6,185,000. Yet, over that same period, the national population grew 1.15%. Within the headline totals, membership in public sector pension plans rose 0.2% to 3,184,300, whereas the number of workers in private sector plans declined 0.2% to 3,000,900.
Of those 6.2 million workers with workplace pensions, approximately 4.4 million were in defined benefit plans, which was down 0.5% from 2012. Most of those workers are in the public sector. Less than 1.4 million private sector workers enjoyed defined benefit coverage, down 1.9% from the previous year.
In 2013, 71.2% of employees with an RPP had a defined benefit plan, down from more than 84% a decade earlier, StatsCan said.
Membership in defined contribution plans increased 0.6% in 2013; and, other plan types, such as hybrid or composite plans, grew by 2.0% year over year.
Total RPP contributions (both employer and employee) amounted to $66.7 billion in 2013, StatsCan reports. Employer contributions for unfunded liabilities accounted for $15.1 billion of the total, up from $12.9 billion in 2012. The market value of assets in RPPs totalled $1.5 trillion in 2013, up 9% from the previous year, StatsCan notes.