Big pay hikes to follow Great Resignation in India, says survey
Raise to be highest in 5 years; e-commerce, VC, IT & ITeS, life sciences employees among biggest beneficiaries, reveals Aon survey
Job cuts are viewed as one of the biggest fallouts of the pandemic, with companies paring down their workforces amid disruptions in the market. But a surprising parallel trend is the Great Resignation — a phenomenon wherein hundreds of thousands of employees are quitting their organisations for greener, more varied pastures.
The Great Resignation trend has led to the highest attrition numbers in two decades, according to a report by Aon, a global professional services company. This has left corporates struggling to acquire digital skillsets across the spectrum, said the report, titled Aon India’s 26th Annual Salary Increase Survey 2021-22. It added that the demand-supply gap is leading to higher people costs.
The attrition level across industries was around 21 per cent in 2021, against 12.8 per cent in 2020, said Aon. For the study, the HR major collated data from 1,500 companies from over 40 industries.
9% increase in pay seen
As the business outlook improves and companies gear up to reach or supersede pre-pandemic levels, recruiting new people and retaining existing ones would get top billing. An upside for employees is that Aon expects salary hikes to reach around 9 per cent in 2022, which would be the highest in half-a-decade.
Also read: Infosys may hire 55,000 freshers next year: CEO Parekh
The survey further said India is likely to see the biggest pay hikes among BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations this year. The increases in Brazil, Russia and China are projected at 5 per cent, 6.1 per cent and 6%, respectively.
The highest pay hikes will be seen in the sectors of e-commerce and venture capital, hi-tech/IT and IT enabled services (ITeS), and life sciences, said the Aon report.
Among the organisations surveyed, around 88 per cent predict an improvement in business outlook in 2022, which would be 11 per cent higher than 2021. Around 33 per cent of the organisations look set to give double-digit pay hikes this year, against 5 per cent last year.
What aids the pay hike levels this time round is the fact that even sectors that struggled during the first wave of COVID — such as retail, logistics and quick-service restaurants (QSR) — are back on their feet now.
