India's projected salary growth for 2018 highest in Asia-Pacific

India's projected salary growth for 2018 stood the highest in the Asia-Pacific region at 10 per cent despite a decreasing year-on-year pattern, a report said on Thursday.

According to the "Q3 2017 Salary Budget Planning Report", released here by global advisory firm Willis Towers Watson, India is followed by Indonesia at a projected rate of 8.5 per cent, China at 7 per cent, the Philippines at 6 per cent and Hong Kong and Singapore at 4 per cent.

The report looks at a range of job grades across various industry sectors and is designed to provide companies with guidance for their annual salary forecasting for the year ahead.

"India continues to show high salary increments compared to other countries in the Asia-Pacific region. However, given the decreasing pattern in the year-on-year salary increases, Indian employees could very well see a single-digit salary increase in 2018 for the first time since 2011," said Sambhav Rakyan, Data Services Practice Leader -- Asia Pacific, at Willis Towers Watson.

"Given this trend and the rapid evolution of jobs, skill and the future of work, especially for tech-savvy talent, requires companies to rethink their talent attraction and retention strategies and realise that simply increasing compensation is not a sustainable solution."

The survey noted that salary allocation for top performers in 2017 had increased to 39 per cent up from last year's 38 per cent.

On the other hand, the budget set aside for average performance budgets decreased by 1 per cent to 27 per cent.

Arvind Usretay, Director, Rewards, Willis Towers Watson India, said: "These changes are marginal, but as salary budgets get tighter, it still reflects the sentiment of employers to reward top performers.

"Therefore, now we see more companies relying on robust processes, governance and training at driving linkages between performance and pay."

Among the industries covered in the report, the most notable projected salary increase was seen in the energy, FMCG and retail sectors at 10.5 per cent.

"This is reflected in the focus on reforms in the renewable energy sector, and convergence in online and offline in the retail sector," the report added.

The report also highlights that the top three functions companies are looking to recruit in the next 12 months are engineering, finance and marketing.

--IANS

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