© 2024 Pension Rights Center. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 2.5 Generic License.
Last week Zep Inc. announced plans to reinstate its 401(k) matching contributions. This move comes six months after the company suspended its match and cut executive pay to reduce costs. At the time, Zep’s CEO said that restoring the match would be the top priority when the company returned to profitability. Currently, Zep is restoring its match to half the level it was before the suspension, but the company expects to fully restore the match by January.
As the economy recovers, we hope that other companies will follow the examples set by Zep and Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, which decided to reinstate its 401(k) match last December because “reinstating the 401(k) match for employees is the right thing to do.” We’ll be keeping an eye out for other match restorations, and noting them on our list of companies that have suspended their 401(k) match.
As we’ve written in the past, suspending the 401(k) match is just one more broken retirement promise that leaves workers unprepared for retirement. For additional insight into how suspended 401(k) matches and pension freezes can impact workers and retirees, read this article in The Oregonian.
