Employment plunged in February as employers faced greater pressure to reduce costs through layoffs and pay cuts, moves that appear to be taking a toll on the morale of remaining workers.

Nineteen percent of employers responding to a new survey are planning to stop offering health benefits over the next three to five years, nearly five times as many as the 4 percent that said they were planning an exit strategy last year.

The company has filed with the SEC to launch a new series of target-date funds that will be available to certain 401(k) plan customers at below retail cost.

The value of pension assets in the 11 largest retirement markets dropped 19 percent in 2008 to $20 trillion, according to a new report.

Participants will receive no further accruals under the defined-benefit pension plan or supplemental pension plan, which should yield cash savings of roughly $6 million for the current fiscal year, according to a news release.

The company will contribute $3 billion to its U.S. plans and $1.6 billion to non-U.S. plans, according to its annual report, filed Friday with the SEC.

Officials ask that employers that are required to make a 3 percent contribution to their employees’ plans so they can get safe-harbor provisions be allowed to suspend the contribution because of economic hardship.

Health care costs are projected to slow in 2009 compared with 2008, but will still continue to outpace growth in the economy because of the recession.

Ninety-five percent of employers say hospitals should waive all costs associated with so-called never events, or serious and largely preventable illnesses or injuries that occur at a hospital, a survey finds.

The rules, which implement a law signed last year by President George W. Bush, would bar employers from deliberately acquiring genetic information from employees and job applicants, and would restrict employers from disclosing genetic information about workers and applicants.

The Pittsburgh company says it has suspended the company match on its two New York-based 401(k) plans effective January 1.

A bankruptcy court allows the auto parts maker to end health benefits for current white-collar employees and about 15,000 retirees.

Bosses say injured workers are delaying their return to uncertain jobs, while laid-off staffers are filing new injury claims. Despite economic conditions, most employees resolve their claims as soon as is medically possible if employers treat them fairly and with respect, one observer says.

In response to employer demand that health insurers improve diabetes care management, health plans are adopting benefit design approaches that encourage patients to take better care of this condition, a new report shows.

The three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, declines to rule whether the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 would apply retroactively in the case

Another way the stimulus law could endure is by launching broader health care reform. It contains $19 billion to establish a national health information technology system to support computerized medical records for every American by 2014.

Employers will have to scramble to comply with federal legislation providing a 65 percent subsidy of COBRA health insurance premiums to laid-off employees laid off betwee September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009.

With the average cost of a family plan in 2008 totaling $12,680, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s survey on health care costs, employers will pay an average of $8,242 per family plan before deducting that expense from payroll taxes.

A California appellate court rules that simultaneous but distinct industrial injuries must be compensated separately rather than combined to settle a permanent-disability case.

Although higher bond yields last month helped to trim funding shortfalls in defined-benefit pension plans, most U.S. pension plans remained significantly underfunded.

The company's U.S. pension assets plunged to $84.2 billion as of December 31, making its two plans combined 87 percent funded, versus 124 percent funded a year earlier, a preliminary estimate shows.

A vast array of proposed rules and regulations that have not been officially adopted or have been recently adopted but not implemented, are now subject to White House review before further action.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp will remain on the GAO’s "high-risk" watch list for 2009, amid concerns that the nation’s economic crisis could lead to more pension plan terminations that would increase the agency’s budget deficit.

PrintRSSEmailShare Employees’ 2008 401(k) plan account balances surrendered investment gains earned during the bull market of the past few years and fell to their lowest level since 2002.

It’s too early to tell whether Lilly Ledbetter will join the pantheon of historic civil rights figures. But at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on Thursday, January 29, she became the symbol of how President Barack Obama intends to put employees at the center of workplace policy.

An online survey of finance employees found that 46 percent of those polled were dissatisfied with their 2008 bonus.

Boeing Co. expects to make $500 million in pension contributions this year, according to the company’s fourth-quarter financial report released Wednesday, January 28.

The company, which laid off 89 of its 305 employees, says the trims come in response to ‘unprecedented’ market declines.

Making indoor workplaces and public areas smoke-free results in sustained reductions in hospitalizations for heart attacks, according to a study conducted in Pueblo, Colorado.

The Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 was passed by Congress this month as part of an effort to aid employers facing large pension funding obligations due to the plunge in investment values.

A majority of pension plan executives have failed to act aggressively to mitigate the issues, according to a survey from Hewitt Associates.

For example, for patients with diabetes, 27 percent of health plans waive co-payments, and 33 percent reduce co-payments, for essential drugs and equipment such as blood glucose monitors.

The company did not specify whether it would also provide dependent care coverage to employees accepting the buyout offer.

The company’s president and CEO cites ‘some of the worst economic conditions in the company's 35-year operating history’ for the change.

Some 97.4 percent of Massachusetts residents have health insurance, by far the highest coverage rate of any state, a survey shows.

The actions came as the result of ‘the sustained downturn in the global economy,’ co-CEOs say.

The Bush administration is making the most of its waning weeks by issuing regulations that will take effect just before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in.

The agency estimates that the plan has $898.2 million in assets to cover $940.8 million in liabilities. If the plan is approved, the agency expects to be responsible for $17.9 million of the shortfall.

The case of Economy Packing Co. v. Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission dealt with Ramona Navarro, a Mexican national who slipped and injured herself in May 2002 while working on an assembly line, court records state.

More U.S. workers are taking steps to lower their medical costs and are unwilling to pay higher health care premiums, according to a new Watson Wyatt Worldwide survey.

The change comes as a result of the dive in the U.S. equity markets this year—and the ever-present risk of being slapped with a stock-drop lawsuit during a downturn.

While the vast majority of companies likely will resume their corporate matches when the economy improves, some, like Ford, may do so with lower contributions, benefit consultants say.

"According to actuarial firm Milliman, employers pay an additional $1,115, or 10.6 percent more, for a family of four’s health insurance premium to help doctors and hospitals make up for lower payments they receive from Medicare and Medicaid."

Combined, the pension funds sponsored by S&P 1500 companies saw their funded status shrink by $130 billion last month, according to a new analysis released by consultants at Mercer.

'A memo sent to U.S. employees by new HR chief Paul McKinnon states Citigroup will no longer provide additional weeks of base pay to employees who have 10 or more years of service.

The state’s Department of Labor and Industries announces that workers’ compensation premiums will increase an average of 3 percent for 2009 policies.

U.S. companies could face a pension contribution tab of $40 billion thanks to this year’s financial crisis. Plus, the falling markets have corporations looking at an expected combined pension deficit of well over $200 billion, their worst ever.

'A long, deep recession will accelerate' the adoption of these plans, says Tom Beauregard of UnitedHealthcare. But employers, concerned with legal issues and upsetting employees, have largely stayed away.

As part of Uncle Sam’s rescue of the company, executives at the beleaguered bank had to agree to have their pay limited and subject to the approval of government officials.

Their costs are growing at nearly twice the rate of other drugs. In 2007, the cost of specialty drugs grew by 12.3 percent, compared with 6.7 percent for drugs overall, a pharmacy benefit manager says.

The growing popularity of consumer-driven health plans is influencing the size of deductibles in traditional preferred provider organization plans, the annual study.

The organization’s suggestions include blocking funding relief to plans that have frozen benefits and to make relief contingent on an employer’s promise to not freeze plans for five years after the period of funding relief.

Employers have raised questions about legislation enacted this year that expands the Family and Medical Leave Act for employees whose family members are in the military

As the largest single payer of health care in the country, Medicare’s proposal to no longer cover a procedure strongly influences what procedures employers and health insurers will cover.

Recent progress in Wal-Mart and Bechtel court cases could offer some much-needed clarity—and comfort—to large corporations that sponsor 401(k) plans, benefits attorneys note.

As troubled as the 401(k) system may be, retirement plan experts argued recently for reforming it rather than getting rid of it.

Nearly two-thirds of benefit plan sponsors think employer-provided health care should continue to be the primary way individuals receive health insurance, a new survey found.

Aetna Inc. is planning staff cuts as the health insurer expects the economic downturn to extend into 2009.

If there's a model for how President-elect Barack Obama—health care policy could play out in the real world and the political challenges it faces, look no further than Massachusetts.