Designed for Savings: Industry Focus offers a deeper dive of our group plan members and sponsors within 18 industries as well as small businesses.

It’s a benchmarking resource for Sponsors looking to adapt their CAPs to keep pace with broader trends within and across industries.

Designed for Savings is Sun Life’s biennial benchmark report on workplace savings plans in Canada.

Our flagship report analyzes data from 1.4 million retirement savings participants and 7,500+ group plans. This report looks at the latest trends in contributions, plan design, investments, as well as the complexities of decumulation, and much more.

New in 2023

Our 2023 edition captures the resilience of plan members and sponsors in the face of recent challenges: A pandemic, labour shortages, and higher inflation and interest rates.

We hope the report provides you with actionable insight to better support you and your plan members.

Key highlights

Beyond updates to benchmarking statistics, Designed for Savings provides actionable insights to help support you and your members achieve improved retirement outcomes.

Among the industry leading insights, you’ll find:

  • Contribution rates and total savings by industry
  • Contributions by size of employer and age range of participants
  • Investing trends for Defined Contribution Pension Plans, RRSPs, TFSAs and more

Overall plan asset breakdown by investment asset class

Pie Chart for Data Comparing plan asset breakdown by investments class, for Sun Life group plan members.

Asset category

Percentage

 Balanced

7%

 Canadian Equity 

12%

 Global Equity

5%

 International Equity

3%

 US Equity

8%

 Fixed Income

4%

 Guaranteed

4%

 Money market

2%

 Company stock

10%

 Target date

37%

 Target risk

8%

Average and median yearly contribution

Bar chart for Data Comparing contributions to group savings plans, by plan sponsors and members, showing both averages and medians.
 

Average

Median

Sponsor Contribution

 $ 5,230

 $ 3,890

Member Contribution

 $ 5,530

 $ 3,990

Combined average plan sponsor and plan member contributions by province/territory

Map of Canada showing combined sponsor and member contributions to group savings plans, by province and territory of Canada. Showing growth between 2020-2022.

Province/ Territory

Total Payroll Average

Percentage Change

AB

 $ 11,040

7.5%

BC

 $ 9,760

6.1%

MB

 $ 6,920

5.7%

NB

 $ 7,400

6.9%

NL

 $ 10,700

8.4%

NS

 $ 7,880

5.6%

NU

 $ 7,740

7.8%

NWT

 $ 10,670

8.0%

ON

 $ 8,620

6.4%

OTHER

 $ 13,710

5.2%

PEI

 $ 7,000

6.3%

QC

 $ 9,060

6.1%

SK

 $ 11,090

6.4%

Yukon

 $ 9,490

7.0%

Median Province

 $ 9,280

6.4%

Account balances by plan tenure

Line chart showing increases in group plan member balances by year, based on their number of years of tenure. Showing average and median.

Employment Tenure in years

Average savings balance

Median savings balance

1

 $          13,330

 $            8,040

2

 $          18,960

 $          10,550

3

 $          26,450

 $          14,710

4

 $          33,890

 $          20,300

5

 $          41,450

 $          26,370

6

 $          48,220

 $          31,090

7

 $          56,840

 $          37,100

8

 $          69,700

 $          47,040

9

 $          80,770

 $          55,200

10

 $          91,540

 $          63,540

11

 $        101,660

 $          69,930

12

 $        109,040

 $          76,700

13

 $        112,680

 $          77,000

14

 $        125,500

 $          86,580

15

 $        130,270

 $          88,100

16

 $        138,810

 $          96,490

17

 $        149,590

 $        105,260

18

 $        154,870

 $        109,070

19

 $        163,540

 $        114,260

20

 $        165,850

 $        113,750

21

 $        177,500

 $        129,570

22

 $        170,280

 $        125,300

23

 $        173,390

 $        126,090

24

 $        188,920

 $        143,430

25

 $        201,950

 $        153,420

26

 $        201,690

 $        158,360

27

 $        200,690

 $        149,550

28

 $        200,750

 $        150,630

29

 $        207,880

 $        153,230

30

 $        199,570

 $        149,860

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