Employees May See Better Pay Hike Of 10-15% in 2018

India Inc is promising better pay hikes of 10-15 percent for the right talent in 2018 after a challenging year for the job market, stunned by post- demonetization, layoffs in traditional sectors like textiles and due to the advent of artificial intelligence in new-age ones.

The catch would be 'right' talent which HR experts broadly define as those who are able to re-skill themselves as per the changing work profile requirements. But, the overall hiring sentiment of employers in India should continue on the revival path after three consecutive quarters of downtrend.

Just about 20 percent firms have made workforce additions in 2017, though a majority of 60 percent managed to retain their staff strength unchanged without any major layoffs. However, the layoffs were huge in IT, telecom, manufacturing, engineering and banking sectors.

Manpower Group's India Economic Outlook showed a dip in the employers' hiring intentions in the first three quarters of 2017, before rising again in the October-December period. The surveys showed the percentage of employers planning to hire dipping to 22 per cent in January-March, further down to 19 percent in April-June and to 16 percent in July- September, but rebounded to 24 percent in October-December.

Experts hope that the recruitment landscape recovery will continue and companies in mobile manufacturing, fintech and start-ups, among others, may hire the most in 2018. Also, pay hike is expected to be 10-15 per cent across most sectors -- up from 8-10 per cent mostly in 2017.

HR experts believe infrastructure, telecom, manufacturing and IT will be among the industry verticals that will grow substantially in the coming year. Moreover, skill development initiatives have boosted the capacity of unorganised sector and small industries which used to struggle for trained resources, he added.