Note 16 - Employee Benefit Plans

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2011

Notes To Financial Statements

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits Disclosure [Text Block]

(16)   EMPLOYEE BENEFIT PLANS

We have a defined contribution 401(k) plan for our employees who work in the U.S. (the "inTEST 401(k) Plan"). All permanent employees of inTEST Corporation and inTEST Silicon Valley Corp who are at least 18 years of age are eligible to participate in the plan. We match employee contributions dollar for dollar up to 10% of the employee's annual compensation, with a maximum limit of $5. Employer contributions vest over four years. Matching contributions are discretionary. At various points in time in the past, these matching contributions have been temporarily suspended as a part of our cost containment efforts. Effective April 1, 2010, we reinstated the matching contributions for the domestic operations within our Mechanical and Electrical Products segments which had been temporarily suspended effective January 1, 2009. For the years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010, we contributed $183 and $162 to the plan, respectively.

Temptronic adopted a defined contribution 401(k) plan for its domestic employees in 1988, that was merged into the inTEST 401(k) Plan effective September 1, 2002. The inTEST 401(k) Plan retains the matching provisions of the prior Temptronic plan for all Temptronic employees. Temptronic matches employee contributions $0.50 on the dollar up to 6% of the employees' annual compensation, with a maximum limit of $3. Matching contributions are discretionary. The eligibility and vesting provisions of the prior Temptronic plan have been conformed to those for inTEST Corporation and inTEST Silicon Valley Corporation employees. Effective April 1, 2010, we reinstated matching contributions that had been suspended effective April 1, 2009 as a part of our cost containment efforts. For the years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010, Temptronic contributed $81 and $54 to the plan, respectively.

In addition to the employer matching for which Temptronic employees are eligible, upon the termination of the Temptronic Equity Participation Plan ("EPP"), we also acknowledged that it was our intention to contribute $3,000 in the aggregate to the inTEST 401(k) Plan as a form of profit sharing (not to exceed $300 per year) for the benefit of Temptronic employees. The amount of these contributions approximates the amount that we had been committed to contribute to the EPP as of its termination date. All such profit sharing contributions are at the discretion of management, and will be allocated to employees annually in the same manner in which the shares held by the EPP had been allocated. The vesting provisions for these contributions are the same as those of the inTEST 401(k) Plan. Effective January 1, 2009, we temporarily suspended profit sharing contributions due to operating losses being incurred by Temptronic. Effective April 1, 2010, profit sharing contributions were reinstated. Accruals for profit sharing contributions totaling $300 and $225 were made during 2011 and 2010, respectively. Through December 31, 2011, we had made a total of $1,853 in profit sharing contributions. We have historically funded these contributions through the use of treasury shares during the quarter subsequent to the quarter in which we record the profit sharing liability, although management has the discretion to use cash to fund these contributions. Our current intention is to use cash to fund these contributions when our stock price is below $3.00 per share.