BENGALURU: Indian companies gave an average pay hike of 9.5 per cent in 2018, reflecting improvement in business sentiments compared to the previous year, said to a survey released on Tuesday.
The 23rd edition of the survey on annual salary increases in India by British global professional services company Aon analysed data across over 1,000 companies from more than 20 industries.
Aon’s projections for 2019 are stable yet favourable at 9.7 per cent as Indian firms are expecting a positive economic outlook, backed by high economic growth, high domestic demand and low inflation.
“A decline in voluntary attrition and controlled incremental hiring continue to keep the sentiment mild,” the report said.
“The pay increases are marginally positive compared to the earlier years — a big highlight is a reducing difference in pay increases across industries year-on-year. A lot of the pay increase decline is also reflected in the constant drop in voluntary attrition levels across industries,” said Anandorup Ghose, partner and head (emerging markets), Aon.
While there is an improvement in the overall increment projection, pay increase budgets across sectors are increasingly tending towards the overall average. The sectors projecting a double-digit increment have come down over the years with only five of them projecting a double-digit increment for 2019. These include consumer internet companies, professional services, life sciences, automotive and consumer products.
The increment projections in other sectors are also a reflection of the expected growth prospects during the year. With government focus on infrastructure investment, sectors such as cement, metal and engineering services saw a revival in demand and an improvement in increment projections for 2019.
“...Attrition continues to maintain the downward trend. Attrition has declined from 18.5 per cent in 2013 to 15.8 per cent in 2018,” said the survey.