Threat of More Layoffs Continues in California : Economy: A survey also shows that companies are clamping down on pay increases.

Despite growing confidence that the state’s recession has bottomed out, more California employers plan to shake up their work forces with layoffs, a survey released Thursday shows.

The study’s authors conclude that growing numbers of companies, even successful firms, are laying off or buying out highly paid workers and often replacing them with lower-paid and younger employees. Temporary employees, experts say, are increasingly being used to fill the void.

Companies “are trying to make themselves more efficient and more productive,” said Kenneth R. Wechsler, one of the directors of the study for William M. Mercer Inc., a management consulting firm.

At the same time, companies are clamping down on pay increases. The survey projected that increases in base pay will average 3.9% in 1994, the lowest raises in the 12 years Mercer has performed the study.

In one possibly hopeful sign for workers, the Mercer study found that firms embarking on layoffs are dismissing somewhat fewer people than a year ago.

All told, however, the Mercer study and recent economic reports show that “in all of the good news about the recovery, there still are a lot of people subject to being laid off,” said Larry Kimbell, director of the UCLA Business Forecasting Project.

Kimbell said the widespread layoffs and the replacement of high-paying jobs with lower-paying ones have so far led to a weak recovery and heightened job insecurity among workers. “A lot of people are running scared,” he said.

The Mercer survey was based on replies from 283 California companies employing 1.8 million people. It found that 45.3% of those firms have had, or will have, layoffs during 1994, including 49% in Southern California.

However, Wechsler said the percentage of firms that actually lay off employees is likely to be even higher. For example, 24% of the companies Mercer surveyed last year anticipated layoffs during 1993, but the percentage that let people go turned out to be 35%.

Likewise, a rising percentage of firms are planning to cut their work forces through attrition: 57.2%, up from 51.4% a year ago.

The cutbacks are coming even though only 11.5% of the companies surveyed believe the economy is getting worse. Another 30.6% said the economy is getting better, while 57.9% said it is staying about the same.

Wechsler said the “corporate re-engineering” trend that has led companies to get rid of highly paid employees even as the economy steadies is also holding down pay increases.

As with layoffs, Wechsler said, the pay projections tend to be somewhat more optimistic than the true results. He predicted that raises in base pay will actually amount to 3.5% or 3.6% this year, rather than the projected 3.9%.

But the news isn’t all bad for workers’ paychecks: While companies are clamping down on base pay increases, Wechsler said, they are easing the pain by increasingly giving employees onetime bonuses intended to link pay to individual performance or the firm’s performance.

Government figures generally show even lower pay increases than the Mercer survey and other management consultants’ studies. For instance, during the first three months of this year, wages climbed at an annual rate of 2.4% nationally, the government said.

The disparity between the government figures and the management consultants’ reports stems from the scope of studies. While the government tracks all civilian workers, the management consultants focus on pay raises for workers who continue with a company throughout the year. Consequently, they do not directly reflect the impact of a highly paid worker being replaced by someone earning less.