According to the survey, which covered 818 organisations and more than 800,000 employees, Indian corporate employees will see an average pay hike of 9.8 per cent in 2023.

By Sneha Saha: A few interesting insights about the average salary hike in India this year are coming in from Korn Ferry’s latest India Compensation Survey. The survey reveals that India is likely to see an average salary increment of around 10 per cent this year, which is just around 0.4 per cent higher than last year. “Although recession and economic slowdown are being discussed across the globe, there is optimism about the Indian economy with a projected GDP growth of 6 per cent upwards,” Navnit Singh, Chairman, and Regional Managing Director, Korn Ferry said in the survey.

According to the survey, which covered 818 organisations and more than 800,000 employees, Indian corporate employees will see an average pay hike of 9.8 per cent in 2023. The report further reveals top talent in any organisation will get a much higher salary hike this year. For the unaware, in 2022, corporate employees witnessed an average salary increment of around 9.4 per cent.

The survey also reveals that organizations will also be focusing a lot on “retaining critical and key talent through various talent management initiatives and formal retention and compensation plans.” The report didn’t clarify as to what these talent management initiatives are that organizations are planning to retain talent. However, Singh revealed that for top talent, the salary increment can be as high as 15 per cent to 30 per cent.

The report highlights that sectors including financial services, banking, technology, media, and gaming will be among the ones to get the highest salary hike this year. These sectors are said to witness the highest salary increase with top 3 being technology at 10.4 per cent, media at 10.2 per cent, and gaming at 10 per cent. Additionally, salary increase projections for some of the other sectors include services at 9.8 per cent, automotive at 9 per cent, chemical at 9.6 per cent, consumer goods at 9.8 per cent, and retail at 9 per cent.

The survey also suggested that most businesses will need to transform their workforce to meet the growing consumer demands. In addition, nearly 60 per cent of the organizations that participated in the survey indicated that they have adopted some kind of a hybrid model.

As per the survey, employees in Tier 1 cities continue to receive higher compensation when compared with Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. However, interestingly, with the hybrid model and remote work becoming the new normal, the survey revealed a “shift towards work becoming location agnostic, aiding Tier 2 cities such as Ahmedabad and Pune in giving competition to Tier 1 cities in Fixed Annual Cash received by employees.”