Common Wealth
2026 rates Sources
Advisor & Employer Tool

What does a group retirement plan save you in turnover costs?

Most employers never quantify the cost of losing people. This estimates the dollars-and-cents return on a group plan from reduced turnover, plus the payroll-tax savings and forfeiture recovery a DPSP adds on top.

Plan design
Province

Your workforce

Start with the basics. Defaults reflect the research ranges; adjust to your client.

$
Optional. If filled, overrides the average above and uses exact CPP/EI caps per person. Leave blank to use the average.
Not sure? Typical turnover ranges
  • Canadian average, all industries~8–12%
  • Specialized / technical (e.g. Chemical)~4–9%
  • Less specialized / front-line (e.g. Retail & Wholesale)~15–25%
Widened working bands around Mercer’s reported figures; specialized / less-specialized is our own categorization of Mercer’s industry data (matching the framing CW’s own turnover-cost research uses), not Mercer’s wording. Mercer’s 2025 Canada Turnover Survey (1,057 organizations) reports 10.2% national average; by industry, 6.5% (Chemical, lowest) to 21.0% (Retail & Wholesale, highest). Mercer Canada ↗
Offboarding, recruitment, onboarding, ramp time and resourcing gaps. Lower for roles that ramp in weeks; higher for specialized roles that ramp in months.
Not sure? Typical cost-per-departure ranges
  • Canadian average, all roles~$29,000
  • Less specialized (ramps in weeks)20–50% of salary
  • Specialized / senior (ramps in months)100–200% of salary
Source: CW research ↗

The plan

What the plan costs, and for a DPSP, what comes back.

% of salary contributed for participating employees. Common Wealth’s average plan match is 3–5%. Set to 0% to model a voluntary, no-match plan; the participation estimate below adjusts automatically.
Estimated from the employer match above. Drag this slider to override with your own number.
Not sure? Participation by plan design
  • No employer match (voluntary)~10%
  • Intermittent / partial match~60%
  • Matched or non-matched required contribution~75%
This calculator has one match input, so it maps 0% match to the voluntary rate and any match >0% to the matched rate; the intermittent tier isn’t separately modeled. Internal CW data ↓
Research range: a plan cut first-year quit risk ~40%; tenure rose 2.7–5.8 yrs, i.e. ~34–74% lower turnover. Source: CW research ↗
Advanced assumptions
$
Most employers can leave this default. It covers internal time to run the plan (enrolment, payroll deductions, employee questions) and barely affects the result. Modern payroll integration keeps it low.

DPSP savings added on top

Switch plan design to DPSP above to model payroll-tax savings and forfeiture recovery.

Uncheck if associated payroll exceeds $5M. Ontario only. Once total payroll passes $1M, the exemption is already used up by salaries alone, so this won’t change the numbers.
Return on investment
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Net annual benefit: —
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Current turnover cost / year
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Turnover savings from plan
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Gross plan cost / year
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Net plan cost (after DPSP)

Where the money moves

Savings & recovered dollars What the plan costs
The plan pays for itself when the green segment outweighs the amber segment.
How this is calculated
Sources & methodology notes
  1. Turnover-cost & retention research: the methodology, cost-per-departure ranges, turnover-reduction research and worked example all come from Common Wealth’s article, “Comparing the costs of a retirement plan to employee turnover” ↗. Read it for the full research and citations. DPSP payroll-tax savings and forfeiture-recovery math are Common Wealth extensions, not in that article.
  2. Turnover-rate benchmarks: Mercer Canada’s 2025 Canada Turnover Survey ↗ (1,057 organizations): 10.2% national average, 6.5% lowest industry (Chemical), 21.0% highest industry (Retail & Wholesale). The on-page “specialized / less specialized” labels are our own categorization applied to these two industries, not Mercer’s own framing.
  3. Participation-rate assumptions: internal Common Wealth data: voluntary / no-match plans ~10%, matched or non-matched required contribution ~75%, intermittent / partial match ~60%.
  4. 2026 payroll tax rates: CPP/CPP2 and the DPSP limit per the Canada Revenue Agency ↗; QPP/QPP2 and Quebec HSF per Revenu Québec ↗; Ontario EHT per the Government of Ontario ↗; EI per the Canada Employment Insurance Commission ↗. Verified against these sources 2026-08-27.

Illustrative only. Not tax, legal or investment advice.