Pensionskassen und Betriebliche Vorsorgekassen in Österreich

Abstract

Occupational pension funds are the main part of the second pillar of retirement provision in Austria and supplements the state’s system. By 2018, more than 947.000 people were already entitled to an occupational pension (+2.5% to 2017). The number of employees that contribute to an occupational pension fund is still growing. 2018 occupational pension funds obtained a performance of minus 5.15%. During the last 10 years occupational pension funds had an average performance of 4.14%. Looking back at the last 28 years (since the legal possibilities to found occupational pension funds), the occupational pension funds’ performance amounted to 5.17%. That proves that on average occupational pension funds generate a positive performance, even in cases of crisis. The reason for this is the focus on safe assets with low risks by trying to achieve a good performance. The asset in government bonds is mostly invested in bonds of European states. The asset in shares only has a share of about 30%. On the other hand, the investment in bonds has an average share of about 63%. Austrian occupational pension funds are Austria’s largest private pension payers (687 million euro in 2018) with assets under management of 22 billion euro. Last year occupational provision funds managed 11.5 billion euro (+0.8 billion euro in 2018) and obtained a performance of minus 1.97%. 3.49 million people had an account at an occupational provision fund (+3.6% to 2017) and the number is still growing.