Jul 15, 2026
Retirement is supposed to be your reward at the end of decades of work — the moment you finally set your own schedule. But new data suggests many people are counting on working in retirement — and most won’t be able to.
BMO’s 2026 Retirement Survey highlighted some striking statistics: of the Boomers surveyed who are not retired, 27% say they do not plan to stop working. Meanwhile, 20% of Gen X, 18% of millennials and 15% of Gen Z respondents also believe they will not be able to stop working in some capacity during retirement.
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Additionally, according to Statistics Canada, one in ten people aged 55 and up who were previously retired had entered back into the workforce in 2023, up from 7% in 2019.
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It's not just intention — the data show many people actually do end up back at work.
Canadians are unprepared for retirement financially
According to the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP)’s 2026 Canadian Retirement Survey, many Canadians are financially unprepared for life after leaving the workforce — and a growing number are rethinking what retirement even looks like. More than half of respondents (57%) said they’d choose a guaranteed lifetime pension over owning a home, and 65% said they’d consider switching jobs for a better pension. These numbers show a shift in preferences: For many Canadians near retirement, financial security has become the top priority over travel and hobbies.
In fact, Canadians now believe they need $1.7 million to retire comfortably, up from $1.54 million only one year earlier, and more than one-third say they’re unlikely to reach that goal, according to the BMO study.
For many, working longer looks like the obvious fix.
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The retirement age keeps climbing — but not always by choice
According to StatCan, as of 2025, the average retirement age has risen to about 65.4 — roughly three and a half years later than in 2003. Self-employed Canadians retire the latest, at an average age of 68, while public sector workers retire earliest, around age 63. But averages hide the harder truth: Not everyone gets to choose when they leave. Health problems, caregiving responsibilities and layoffs push a significant number of workers out of the workforce well before they planned to go.
And once someone loses a job later in life, getting back in isn’t easy. StatCan’s Labour Force Survey from June 2026 found that the overall average time spent unemployed before finding a new position was 23.2 weeks, or just over five months. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for Canadians aged 55 and older sits at 5.2%.
CPP and OAS alone won’t replace a paycheque
Part of the reason so many people count on working longer is that Canadian government benefits rarely cover the full cost of retirement. As of 2026, the maximum Canada Pension Plan (CPP) payment for someone starting benefits at 65 is $1,507.65 a month — but the average new recipient collects closer to $877.01. Old Age Security (OAS) adds a maximum of roughly $752 a month for those aged 65 to 74. Combined, that’s roughly $1,629 a month for someone receiving the average CPP amount plus full OAS — an income most Canadians would find hard to live on, especially in cities like Toronto and Vancouver where the cost of living is high.
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That gap is exactly why so many Canadians add “keep working” into their retirement math. The trouble is, as Canadian data show, that the plan tends to look better on paper than it does in reality.
Plan for real life, not hope
None of this means paid work in retirement is a bad idea — plenty of Canadians who keep working part-time do so happily, for social reasons as much as financial ones. The problem is treating a future job as the backstop plan for a retirement that doesn’t otherwise add up.
A report from the National Institute on Ageing’s Pension Centre of Excellence, cited by The Globe and Mail, makes a similar point about workplace pensions: Guaranteed lifetime income does more than replace a paycheque — it reduces stress and steadies household finances in a way that casual work later in life often can’t. The same lesson applies to anyone without a pension who’s counting on a future job to fill the gap.
What Canadians can do now
Don’t build your retirement plan around income you hope to earn, but rather income you can count on. Here’s where to start:
- Build your retirement budget around CPP, OAS and your own savings — not a job you might or might not be able to do
- If you have a workplace pension, get a clear estimate of what it will actually pay before you factor it into your plan
- Test your plan against an earlier-than-expected exit — ask what happens to your finances if health problems or a layoff ends your career five or 10 years sooner than planned
- If part-time work in retirement matters to you, start building the skills and contacts for it now, while you’re still employed — don’t assume a new job will be easy to find later
- Talk to a certified financial planner or use the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada’s retirement planning tools to check whether your plan holds up without income from work
The sooner Canadians plan around the numbers as they are — not as they hope they’ll be — the better prepared they’ll be for whatever retirement actually brings.
— with files from Melanie Huddart
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Eric Esposito is a freelance contributor on MoneyWise who loves making financial topics accessible and understandable to readers. In addition to MoneyWise, Eric’s work can be found in publications such as WallStreetZen and CoinDesk.
