ASHE Pension Results 2017

The proportion of employees in Northern Ireland who belonged to a workplace pension scheme increased over the year to over 68%. This is the 5th consecutive year of increases in pension membership.

Key points

• The increase in the proportion of employees belonging to a workplace pension scheme was due to increases in membership of Occupational Defined Contribution and Group Personal pensions.
• Occupational Defined Benefit pensions have been the most common form of workplace pension for the past ten years. However, the proportion of employees in this pension scheme has declined in the past two years to approximately a quarter of all employees in 2017.
• Nearly nine out of ten public sector employees (88%) and six out of ten (58%) private sector employees were members of a workplace pension scheme.  This is an increase of 35 percentage points (pps) for private sector employees and 8pps for public sector in the last 5 years.
• Pension membership varies widely by industry with those employed in ‘public administration and defence’ most likely to have a pension (97%) and those in ‘Accommodation and food service activities' least likely (29%).
• Full report available here

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