AFP/New Delhi
Even with India’s economy growing at its slowest pace in a decade, average salaries in the country are projected to jump by more than 10% in 2013, a new survey forecast yesterday.
That is far below the blistering 15% wage growth pace set before the onset of the 2008 global financial crisis when India’s economy was expanding at near double digits.
But India leads in forecast salary rises across key Asia-Pacific nations with its projected average 10.3% increase the highest followed by China, where wages are seen growing by 9.3%, according to global staffing services company AonHewitt.
“Business sentiment is strengthening,” Sandeep Chaudhary, consultant at AonHewitt, told a news conference to announce the results of the survey of 518 Indian companies ranging from auto manufacturers to infrastructure firms.
A government statistics agency has forecast the economy will grow by 5% in the current financial year to March 2013, the weakest in a decade, though Finance Minister P Chidambaram says he is confident he can steer expansion up to 6-to-7% % next year.
The divide in India between the highest and the lowest paid is still vast despite mounting public concern about a lack of equal distribution of the fruits of economic growth in the country where hundreds of millions of people still live in desperate poverty.
The highest-paid employees get 822 times more than the lowest-paid in India, Chaudhary said, compared with 625 times in the US and around 550 times in China.
He attributed the wage disparities in India to low entry salaries and the need to pay large sums to attract key talent for top jobs.
The figures for India only reflect prospects for the 7% of workers employed in the so-called “organised sector”.