NEW DELHI – Competition for qualified talent is fueling hefty pay raises in India, but companies may still find it hard to retain personnel, a new survey said Tuesday.
India is likely to top salary hikes in Asia for a fifth year in 2008, according to an annual survey conducted by global human resource company Hewitt Associates. Indian salaries are expected to rise by an average 15.2 percent after increasing 15.1 percent last year, the survey showed.
The high salary growth is fueled by a talent demand and supply mismatch, the survey said.
“Employees are increasingly looking for great career opportunities and are actively being pursued by other organizations,” said Sandeep Choudhury, a Hewitt executive. “Organizations are using compensation as a strategic lever.”
China is expected to come in second in the region with projected 2008 raises of about 8.5 percent, followed by the Philippines with 8.3 percent, the survey said.
The survey measured actual and projected increases in salaries of individuals in the private sector. It examined compensation practices in five specific job categories – executives, managers, midlevel staff, clerks and manual workers.
The survey covered 2,000 Asian companies, 540 of which are in India. The companies surveyed in India included foreign-owned, locally owned and joint venture companies across 19 industries.
India’s booming economy has averaged nearly 8.5 percent growth in the past five years, but more than 300 million of its nearly 1.1 billion people still live on less than a dollar a day and nearly twice that number struggle for access to basic facilities such as drinking water, education and health care.
The survey included companies in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.
