FORT WAYNE - An old-fashioned service is driving newfangled growth for a local office.

Buck Consultants plans to add up to 23 actuarial jobs here over the next two years as it relocates work from other offices. The HR consulting firm, which entered the local market in 1982 after buying Lincoln National Corp.'s niche operation, has designated Fort Wayne as its Retirement Valuation Center.

Buck's clients are small and mid-sized employers who guarantee monthly payments of a specific amount to retirees. Buck's actuaries tell clients how much they need to invest to meet these future pension obligations, based on the ages of workers, turnover, retirement, future annual pay increases and other factors.

Pension plans are becoming increasingly rare, said Jeff Rose, Buck principal. But the demand for Buck Consultants' services remains strong.

Even plans that are frozen, with no more added contributions, must be managed so they can provide payouts to all those who have been guaranteed them. Rose said some plans his office oversees continue to operate after being frozen for 20 or 30 years. Other plans have stopped covering new workers, who are offered 401(k) retirement plans instead. But those pension plans also have to remain solvent for years, as long as the youngest participants are alive and drawing benefits, he said.

Rose sees it as job security.

More people have participated in an increasingly smaller number of pension plans over the past 20 or more years, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. The federal agency, established by Congress in 1974, pays participants in defined benefit pension plans if their plans become insolvent and can't cover promised benefits.

Almost 33.8 million Americans were participants in 27,887 single-employer pension plans insured by the corporation in 2008, the most recent numbers available. That's a steep drop from 1985, when 112,208 plans covered almost 30 million workers.

By contrast, 72 million workers had 401(k) accounts in 491,000 of the retirement plans in 2007, according to the Labor Department.

While the number of pension plans has been declining, the number of 401(k) plans has grown dramatically.

Typically, employers agree to contribute a specific amount of money - sometimes matching the worker's contribution - for employees to invest.

How much those retirement funds increase - or decrease - is based on employees' individual investment choices and the stock market's performance.

During the recession, 401(k) and pension balances alike shriveled as the stock markets plummeted. Younger workers have time to rebuild their 401(k)s. Those closer to retirement have had to make some tough decisions.

On the pension side, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. has been called in to make good on some bankrupt companies' payments to workers. As of November, the government office was running an estimated $22 billion deficit.

The federal agency is funded with payments from pension plans and profits from its own investments, not with taxpayer money.

During the federal fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 144 pension plans failed. The fund must make payments to those affected workers on top of those who participated in the 67 plans that failed the previous fiscal year.

New York-based Buck tries to keep its clients from adding to the statistics.

The firm entered the local market when it made the strategic decision to pick up a business Lincoln was ready to shed. Philadelphia-based Lincoln, which was based in Fort Wayne until 1999, has sold various operations over the years as it has refined its corporate focus.

Buck's local office started with 12 or 13 former Lincoln employees, Rose said. The workforce size remained steady until four years ago. Since then, the local staff has grown to 48, even though the pool of potential clients is shrinking, he said.

Fort Wayne's lower cost of doing business has prompted Buck leaders to consolidate work here. Employees now doing those tasks in other offices have been offered transfers but have rejected the idea of moving to the Midwest from much larger cities, Rose said. Buck has offices in New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas and Toronto, among other major U.S. and international cities.