As the result of the Affordable Care Act (A.C.A.), do baking and snack companies plan to reduce employee benefits in 2014 to help manage health care costs?

According to Baking & Snack’s annual Capital Spending Survey, 22% of them plan to reduce benefits while 64% said they would not cut them, and 14% were not sure. A greater share (29%) of smaller companies with annual revenues under $25 million plan to slice benefits than larger ones (19%).

Baking & Snack also wanted to know if businesses planned to modify their workforce complexions because of health care reform. Only 9% of those surveyed are replacing full-time workers with part-timers and 8% are hiring temporaries for full-time positions. The majority, 53%, replied they’re not doing anything at this time while 30% said they were “not sure,” suggesting potential confusion about the impact of health care reform, said to Marjorie Troxel Hellmer, president of Cypress Research Associates, Kansas City, which completed the survey in late December.

Once again, the law seems to have a more immediate impact on smaller companies. The survey said 16% of them will replace full-timers with part-timers compared with 5% of larger businesses.