Of persons in employment in Quarter 3 2022, two-thirds (66%) had pension coverage, unchanged on the same period in 2021. Supplementary pension cover includes occupational pension provision from current and previous employments, as well as personal pension coverage, including where payments have been deferred for a while or are currently being drawn down. The State Pension is excluded for the purpose of this survey. See Table 2.1.
Supplementary pension coverage of males has remained unchanged from the same period in 2021 (68%), while pension coverage of females has increased marginally by one percentage point - 65% of females in employment in 2022 versus 64% in 2021. See Table 2.1.
Those in employment aged between 45 and 54 years have the highest level of supplementary pension coverage – 77% of this age group (unchanged from 2021), compared with three quarters (75%) of persons aged 55 to 69, and almost seven in ten (69%) workers in the 35 to 44 years age group. There has been only a marginal difference in supplementary pension coverage for these age groups since 2021. See Table 2.1.
Pension coverage in 2022 has followed the same trend as in 2021 where pension coverage was lowest among young workers, although pension coverage has increased for this age group since the survey was last carried out in 2021 – 31% of younger workers aged 20 to 24 years had supplementary pension coverage compared with one quarter (25%) of workers in this age group in the same period in 2021. See Table 2.1.
Of those in employment who are self-employed and/or assisting relative in Quarter 3 2022, nearly six in ten (56%) had supplementary pension coverage, compared with 55% in 2021. This pension cover includes occupational pension coverage from previous employment and also personal pensions (including personal pensions where payments have been deferred for a period of time and pensions currently in draw-down mode). See Table 2.1.
Pension coverage has increased marginally for both full-time and part-time workers. Over seven in every ten (72%) full-time persons in employment have pension coverage (71% in 2021), while 43% of persons in part-time employment had supplementary pension coverage, up one percentage point from the same period in 2021 (42%). See Table 2.1.
The economic sector with the highest pension coverage in Quarter 3 2022 was Public Administration and Defence; Compulsory Social Security (98%) and the lowest coverage was in the Accommodation and Food Service Activities sector (24%). See Table 2.2.
Analysis of pension coverage by broad occupational groups shows that workers whose occupation was classified as Professionals had the highest pension coverage rate (82%), followed by Associate Professional and Technical (77%), and Managers, Directors and Senior Officials (72%), and just over four in ten (43%) workers whose broad occupational group was Skilled Trades, had pension coverage. See Figure 2.2 and Table 2.2.
| Managers, Directors and Senior Officials | Professionals | Associate Professional and Technical | Administrative and Secretarial | Skilled Trades | Caring, Leisure and Other Services | Sales and Customer Service | Process, Plant and Machine Operatives | Elementary | |
| Pension Coverage 2022 | 72 | 82 | 77 | 69 | 43 | 51 | 53 | 54 | 37 |
