Survey: India to see a 10 per cent salary increase in 2020, highest in APAC

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. While salary increases in India are stabilising around the 10% mark, they remain the highest in the APAC region.

Indonesia is projected at 8%, China at 6.5%, Philippines at 6%, Hong Kong and Singapore both at 4%. Rajul Mathur, Consulting Leader – Talent & Rewards, Willis Towers Watson India said, “Though salary increases in India still continue to be among the highest in the region, companies are taking a cautious approach and do not intend to make any significant changes from previous years. Companies are beginning to make selective skill-based compensation adjustments to cater to requirements around automation and digitisation. Going forward, organisations should continue to re-examine the alignment between their business and talent strategies, as well as how to remunerate and reward different segments of the workforce considering their core contribution to business success.”

Of the surveyed companies, 28% have projected a positive business revenue outlook for the next 12 months, down from 37% in 2018. Whereas, 61% expect no big change as compared to 57% last year; and, 11% have a downward revenue projection compared to 5% in 2018. With the cautious business outlook, recruitment efforts are expected to slow down.

The survey shows that only 22% of the organisations in India plan to add new headcount compared to 29% last year. Organisations planning to maintain their current headcount increased from 63% in 2018 to 70% in 2019; while, 7% plan to reduce headcount as compared to 8% last year.

Hiring has been stable across sectors like high tech, shared service outsourcing, pharmaceuticals, energy, retail and chemicals, while captives continue to ramp up and expand with newer lines being introduced or insourced into the India operations. However, hiring has slowed down markedly for automobile, auto ancillary and engineering.