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 ↗

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.