People who work for or have retired from large multinationals and banks will not be affected by the pension crisis, but the pensions of those working for middle or small-sized companies are under threat.

The warning comes from the Volkskrant‘s annual research into the coverage ratio of 100 large pension funds.
The research shows that 85 of the 100 have a coverage ratio lower than the official minimum of 105%. Of these, 30 pension funds have a coverage ratio of under 90%.
The best performers are the pension funds of large companies and banks such as KLM, ING, Shell, Unilever, IBM and SNS Bank which have a coverage ratio of above the 105%. These companies have made large capital injections into their pension funds over the past few years, says the Volkskrant’s report.
Sector funds, which work for a large number of smaller firms, have seen their coverage drop and have been unable to refill their coffers with raised premiums of a few percentage points.
There is a huge risk, says the report, that pension funds for thousands of workers in sectors such as the metal industry, hairdressing and printing will see their pensions cut by between 10 and 15%.
The problems for these pension funds is grist to the mill of the FNV Bondgenoten union which is firmly against the pension changes agreed between the trade union federation FNV, employers and employment minister Henk Kamp, says the Volkskrant.
One of the the planned changes is to link pensions to stock exchange movements, moving the investment risk from the employers to workers and pensioners.
Some of the funds, including those for dispensing chemists and solicitors, have already cut their pension payments. The Volkskrant warns they may have to make a second cut in the near future.