Pension Indices: December 2022

The Pension Indices by TELUS Health (formerly LifeWorks), released monthly, condense the journey that pension plans have experienced during the year into a few key statistics. More importantly, they also provide an early indicator of the challenges and opportunities that are yet to come for plan sponsors and administrators to help with the monitoring and management of their pension plans.

Highlights:

•  Over the month of December, the funded position of a typical pension plan decreased on a solvency basis and on an accounting basis.
• The investment return was -3.5% for the month for a representative pension plan portfolio, driven by negative returns in equity markets and an increase in bond yields. The return for 2022 for the plan was -12.5%.
• The Canadian equity index finished the month with a weak return of -4.9%. Returns for Canadian bond indices were negative as yields increased for bonds of all durations. Short-term Government of Canada bond yields increased by 0.17% during the month, whereas long-term Government of Canada bond yields increased by approximately 0.27%.
• Market expectations for long-term inflation(the break-even inflation rate) were approximately 2.09% at the end of December, which represents a 0.22% increase from the end of November.
• The accounting pension expense index saw a decrease in December due to an increase in the accounting discount rate during this period. It is well below the beginning of year index value.