Salaries in India rise during July ’04 to Jan ’05: Survey

‘‘Due to a large region-wide economic upswing and the global attention attracted by India, employers are reporting a more positive outlook on salary increase across industries in 2004,’’ Nishchae Suri, business consulting leader Hewitt Associates’ Asia-Pacific, said.

He said keeping with the boom in the IT sector, it awarded the highest average salary at 14.9 per cent, followed closely by the entertainment/communication/publication sector at 14.7 per cent.

The latter has also been projected to provide the best pay-cheques at 15.4 per cent in the year 2005, Suri said quoting the survey which covered 573 organisations and analysed information on more than 700,000 employees.

Industries, with the lowest salary increases in 2004, were not-for-profit at 9.1 per cent, banking at 9.3 per cent and chemical/petrochemicals at 9.5 per cent, he said.

On the higher rate of attrition in India, he said it has risen from 13.2 per cent in 2003 to 14.5 per cent in 2004. Professionl/supervisor/technical cadre recorded the highest level of attrition at 14.6 per cent last year, he said and added that it was due to higher demand for the limited talent pool in the country.

Suri said the survey concluded that Indian salaried people were better off than their other Asian counterparts. Unlike the trend in 2000 when senior management received highest increment, the pay packets have been getting fatter for professional/supervisor/technical for the last five years, he said, adding this would continue in 2005 as well.

The salary for senior and top management increased by 12.2 per cent in 2004 and by 14.3 per cent for professional/supervisor/technical staff, the survey found. Salary for the clerical support staff increased by 12.1 per cent while the manual group stood last in the list with a 9.7 per cent increase during the year.

Suri attributed the change to better understanding of the performance by the employers in the country and said it was due to the performance-based selective approach adopted unlike the earlier broad brush approach. He said there werwere no plans for a salary freeze all across Asia-Pacific as the outlook for companies performance has been projected to be much more robust.