Chennai: At 9.4 per cent, salary hikes in 2022 are expected to return to pre-pandemic level with information technology, e-commerce and professional services projecting over 10 per cent raise.
By a survey of professional services firm Aon India, companies increased salaries by 8.8 per cent on an average in 2021. For next year, Aon has projected a 9.4 per cent rise in salaries across 39 sectors in India. The survey analysed data from 1,300 companies.
In 2019, the actual salary hike stood at 9.3 per cent and it had dipped to 6.1 per cent in 2020. Salary hike stood at 12.6 per cent in 2011 and 15.1 per cent in 2007.
The top three sectors with the highest salary increase projected for 2022 are IT, e-commerce and IT-enabled services.
IT is expected to provide an average salary hike of 11.2 per cent while the raise would be 10.6 per cent for e-commerce and professional services. The sectors with the lowest salary increase projected for 2022 are hospitality, engineering services and energy.
There has been an increase in the share of companies which would go for more than 10 per cent pay hike in 2022 at 24.7 per cent compared to 20.4 per cent in 2021.
Meanwhile, the percentage of companies which would give no pay hike has come down from 2.5 per cent in 2021 to 1.1 per cent in 2022. Those giving less than 5 per cent hike also have come down from 7.3 per cent to 4.5 per cent.
Among the responding companies 61.9 per cent predicted improvement in business outlook for 2022 compared to 45.4 per cent in 2021 while 26.6 per cent sees no impact in 2022 versus 22.9 in 2021. On the other hand, only 11.5 per cent predict a decline in business outlook against 31.7 per cent in 2021.
"While 2021 is a year where certain sectors remain under stress due to the COVID-19 pandemic, most businesses have an optimistic view going into 2022 and are projecting higher salary increases. We see positive sentiment across most sectors, high investor confidence with sustained foreign direct investment flowing into the country and growing consumer demand across most segments," said Nitin Sethi, partner and CEO of Aon India.
