The battle for a secure retirement is about to get even tougher.

Several new surveys of company executives show that they plan to reduce or suspend their company's retirement-plan contributions this year.

Dozens of employers in the past year have already slashed such costs.

The trend means one important thing for workers: smaller nest eggs, unless they save enough to make up for the missing company contributions and matches.

Arrangements vary, but employers have often matched 25 or 50 cents of every dollar an employee puts in a retirement account, up to 6 percent of pay.

Companies of all sizes, under financial pressure, are "retrenching on the 401(k) front," says Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

General Motors, Eastman Kodak, FedEx and Sears Holdings are among the companies that have suspended their 401(k) contributions.

A survey released Wed-nesday by research and consulting company Spectrem Group says 29 percent of employers intend to reduce or eliminate contributions to "defined-contribution retirement plans" in the next 12 months.

While the survey has a large +/- 8-percentage-point margin of error, other surveys back up the dire forecast.

A mid-February study by employment consulting company Watson Wyatt Worldwide found that 12 percent of 245 large companies have cut their 401(k)/ 403(b) matches — and another 12 percent plan to do so in the next 12 months.

Most workers are unprepared to fund retirement.

Using data from the Federal Reserve's 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances, which was published before the financial crisis, Munnell pegged the median 401(k) balance for those approaching retirement at $60,000.

Those retirement funds are likely worth only about $40,000 now, she says.

Most employees seem braced for the news. Nearly half of workers said in November that they were concerned that the sour economy would cause their employers "to cut back on matches to 401(k)/ 403(b) /457 plans," according to MetLife's annual Employee Benefits Trends Study.