Recent surveys on the future of employer matches to 401(k) plan participant contributions give some reason to be cautiously optimistic.

. . . Preliminary results from Securian Financial Group's annual client survey show that although 32 percent of respondents have experienced or anticipate a reduction or suspension of their match, 9 percent have instituted one or expect to increase their match.

. . . Securian's typical client base is in smaller employers (50 to 1,000 employees) with some larger outliers. [However,] Rick Ayers, vice president of retirement plan services, said whether or not companies have dropped their contributions to their 401(k) plans depends more on the particular industry than business size.

"It's more along the nature of their business than the size of it," said Ayers, noting that while the health care field is looking positive, manufacturing and construction "have had a more difficult experience."

[However,] Great-West, Senior Vice President Chris Cumming said employer size has a lot to do with it. Cumming deals mostly with plans greater than $25 million with more than 1,000 employees and has seen only a couple of those employers curtail their match. He attributes access to consulting firms that provide the ability to forecast and budget well as one reason why his larger clients haven't made many changes.

. . .There is much talk about boosting automatic-enrollment efforts from both Congress and the Obama administration, but how it will affect future employer contribution rates remains to be seen. Historically, the employer match has been useful in incentivizing employees to join voluntary 401(k) programs, said Jean Young, research analyst with Vanguard Center for Retirement Research. Now, nearly half of the eligible employees that Vanguard works with are in automatic-enrollment plans.

"I don't think it will affect the individual savings level," she said. "So the people who are automatically enrolled are going to stick with the automatic enrollment and the savings rates whether the match is there or not."

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