A recent survey brought good tidings for the salaried class in India. The Willis Towers Watson survey on salary trends stated that there will be a median increase of 9.3 per cent in salaries in 2022, as against an increase of 8.1 per cent in 2021. This translates to an average increase in salaries of 8.8 per cent in 2022, as against an average increase of 7.4 per cent in 2021, the Salary Budget Planning Report stated.
The report looks at a range of job grades across various industry sectors and is designed to provide guidance to companies on salary forecasting.
The Willis Towers Watson survey states that India, additionally, continues to project the highest salary increase for 2021 in the Asia Pacific region. As against India, Sri Lanka is projected to see an increase of 5.5 per cent, China 6 per cent, Indonesia 6.9 per cent and Singapore 3.9 per cent.
ATTRITION RATE
Attrition rate in India has been lower as compared to other countries. Voluntary attrition rate has been marked at 8.9 per cent, while involuntary attrition rate is 3.3 per cent.
With the recovery of the economy, companies in India projected a positive business revenue outlook for the next 12 months. This led to an increase in hiring activity with 30 per cent companies planning to hire in the coming year -- almost three times of last year.
Hiring is likely to increase for critical functions such as engineering (57.5 per cent), information technology (53.4 per cent), technically skilled trades (34.2 per cent), sales (37 per cent) and finance (11.6 per cent). These jobs will also attract a high salary.
Rajul Mathur, Consulting Leader India, Talent and Rewards at Willis Towers Watson said, “Increased business optimism is clearly translating into higher salary budgets and increased hiring activity. While talent attraction and retention remain a challenge, the core employee value proposition will now need to go beyond just competitive salaries, and increasingly focus on a wider range of benefits, wellness, upskilling and the overall employee experience.”
SECTORAL TRENDS
High-tech sector is expected to see the highest salary increase at 9.9 per cent in 2022, followed by the consumer products and retail sector at 9.5 per cent, and manufacturing at 9.30 per cent.
“Covid-19 accelerated the digitalisation process across industries including automation and artificial intelligence. These developments, along with the high-tech sector’s early adoption of the remote working model has positively impacted the sector’s salary projections,” said Mathur. Meanwhile, the energy sector received among the lowest actual salary increase in 2021 at 7.7 per cent. The projected salary of the energy sector in 2022 is also the lowest at 7.9 per cent. The survey stated that employees can also expect a higher average variable pay at 15.7 per cent this year for the 2020 performance year.
Also read: Precision puts women in demand at mobile handset factories Also read: Return-to-office trends may be dragging down metros’ hiring in Sept: Monster index