THE WORK PLACE : Among the Payoffs for Living in O.C. Are Regular Merit Raises, Study Says

If your salary is good, and pay raises come with regularity, you probably owe it to the county’s high cost of housing and low unemployment rate. Those are the factors that cause local companies to fork over better-than-average pay raises to executives.

County firms are in the top quarter of U.S. companies in the amount they budget for merit raises--annual performance-based pay increases.

A recent study by TPF&C;, a worldwide personnel consulting firm, has surveyed budgets for merit raises set aside by 1,500 companies in 25 U.S. regions. The study checked how those budgets increase from year to year.

According to the survey, merit raises paid to top management by companies in Milwaukee rose 6.4% in 1989, giving it the best rating of all areas surveyed. The worst was Houston, where merit raise budgets rose by just 4.6%.

The study showed Orange County in a four-way tie for fourth place in the merit-raise derby; firms here increased their merit raise budgets by 5.6% in 1989.

San Francisco, where merit raise budgets rose 5.7%, and San Diego, where budgets rose 6.2%, were the only areas besides Milwaukee to best Orange County. Eighteen other regions--including Los Angeles--came in below.

Sky-high housing costs and subterranean unemployment levels account for county firms’ generosity, said Lawrence A. Wangler, who oversees compensation practices at TPF&C;’s Newport Beach office.

“It’s so terribly difficult to bring someone (workers) into Orange County because of the cost of housing,” Wangler said. “If you’re an employer, you’re more willing to provide a little more compensation to keep people here and in their jobs, because it’s a lot less expensive than trying to bring somebody new in to fill a job.”