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 2017, 924.107 people were already entitled to an occupational pension (+ 2% to 2016). The number of employees that contribute to an occupational pension fund is still growing. 2017 occupational pension funds obtained a performance of 6.13%. During the last 5 years, occupational pension funds had an average performance of 5.13%; during the last 10 years the occupational pension funds’ average performance was 3.36%. Looking back at the last 27 years (since the legal possibilities to found occupational pension funds), the occupational pension funds’ performance amounted to 5.55%. 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 36%. On the other hand, the investment in bonds has an average share of about 56%. The Austrian occupational pension funds are Austria’s largest private pension payers (668 million euro in 2017) with assets under management of 22.6 billion euro (+ 1.2 billion euro or + 5% to 2016) and the asset is still rising. Last year occupational provision funds managed 10.6 billion euro (+ 1 billion euro in 2016) and obtained a performance of 2.15%. 3.37 million people had an account at an occupational provision fund (+ 4.3% to 2016) and the number is still growing.