With increment season just round the corner, professional services firm Aon has some good news for the Indian salaried class. According to the 23rd edition of its annual Salary Increase Survey, most industries are projecting a marginally higher pay increase budget for 2019. The survey is based on more than 20 industries, covering 433 manufacturing organisations and 591 service organisations.
While companies in the country gave an average increment of 9.5% during 2018, the projections for 2019 are more favourable at 9.7% as companies expect a positive economic outlook backed by high economic growth expectation, high domestic demand and low inflation.
There are only five sectors projecting a double-digit increment for 2019. These include sectors such as Consumer Internet Companies, Professional Services, Life Sciences, Automotive and Consumer Products.
As per the report, gradual slowing of pay increases has put more emphasis on productivity and performance. Top performers and critical talent will continue to get lucrative hikes in the range of 1.7-1.9 times in 2019.
What is striking is that attrition has reduced significantly. From 18.5 per cent in 2013, it is now 15.8 per cent in 2018 and a large part of this attrition is involuntary, where companies ask people to leave.
Globally, India is expected to provide a better appraisal in 2019 than most of the countries such as United Kingdom, United States, Russia, Canada Brazil, Australia and South Africa.
In 2019, Argentina will provide the highest appraisal. As per Aon report, Argentina will provide an average salary increase of 23.5 per cent while their GDP (gross domestic product) is expected to fall by 1.6 per cent.
Going by the levels of management, the top management is expected to reap the highest benefits of around 24.5 per cent this year. While the middle management is expected to take 16.5 per cent and the junior management will get a salary increase of 10.8 per cent in 2019.