New York state’s second-largest union of public workers, facing hundreds of layoffs that had been scheduled to take effect within days, agreed on Saturday to significant wage and benefit concessions in order to save the jobs of its members.

The five-year agreement between Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the Public Employees Federation largely mirrors the deal struck last month with the state’s largest public employee union, the Civil Service Employees Association, which also agreed to big concessions in exchange for giving its members immunity from most layoffs.

The federation, which represents about 55,000 state workers, agreed to forgo across-the-board raises for three years, accept furlough days for the first time and increase the amount members contribute toward their health insurance coverage.

The concessions in the deal, which must be ratified by the union’s membership, would save the state $75 million this fiscal year and nearly $400 million over the course of the contract, the governor’s office said.

“This agreement reflects the financial reality of the times,” Cuomo said in a statement. “I am pleased that we could avoid these layoffs, protect the work force and the taxpayer.”

The union’s president, Kenneth Brynien, made clear that impending layoffs were a driving force in reaching the deal.

“This was a difficult agreement to reach, but with our members’ jobs in peril and the state’s fiscal hardship, we’ve stepped up and made the necessary sacrifices,” Brynien said in a statement. “The agreement will preserve our members’ jobs and careers while bringing long-term fiscal stability to the state.”

The pact came less than a month after the Civil Service Employees Association, which generally represents workers who are paid less than the more white-collar membership of the Public Employees Federation, reached a pact with the governor.

At the time, the federation and Cuomo’s representatives were still at odds. The negotiations with both unions lacked the sort of public enmity seen recently in other states like Wisconsin and New Jersey, where the governors took a more confrontational approach.

Cuomo’s budget assumed $450 million in savings from reduced labor costs, and the governor had said that as many as 9,800 layoffs could be necessary if none of the state’s public employee unions accepted wage freezes and other concessions.

As negotiations with the Public Employees Federation dragged on, the Cuomo administration notified 700 union members in recent weeks that their positions were scheduled to be eliminated if no agreement were reached.

The first wave of layoffs was scheduled to take effect Friday, providing something of a hard deadline for Cuomo and union representatives to reach an agreement.