Hire more but pay moderately– is the new mantra for the India Inc this year.  According to the TeamLease Jobs & Salaries Primer Report – 2016-17, India Inc is expected to hire more people but pay moderately, with the average salary hike this fiscal likely to range between 11-13% across industries and functions. This is a sign of job market becoming more mature and industries are getting smarter at rewarding. 

Unlike last year, double digit salary growth will not be universal. Only 42% of the profiles will witness a significant increment in the pay package this fiscal, the report said. 

Rituparna Chakraborty, Senior Vice President TeamLease Services, said, “The current stagnancy in salary growth is more of a course correction. The renewed focus on talent acquisition coupled with improvement in business scenario, will bring back the buoyancy in reward and compensation structure.”

According to the report, Delhi seems to have dethroned Bangalore as the top paying city. The city tops the growth chart in 6 of the 15 industries.  IT (13.65%), Healthcare and Pharma (13.28%) and Telecommunication (12.67%) choose Delhi as the city to reward talent in best. Pune-Retail (13.28%), Hyderabad-FMCD (12.19%), Bangalore-Construction and Real Estate (11.66%) and Pune-Agriculture and Agrochemicals (12.32%) are the other prominent city-industry clusters.

Salaries in the Blue Collar domain see a steep rise for select profiles, with employers wanting to reward and retain specialized skills, the TeamLease report said. Power and Energy (Electrician, Supervisor) and Hospitality (Gym Instructor, Housekeeping) are cases where blue collar job profiles have garnered lofty salary increments this year. The demand spurt for vocational skills is predominantly coming from a least likely sector – e-commerce – and their direct employment is driven by the need for minimum standards of soft skills.

Innovation captures the imagination of many a sector resulting in a 15% increase in the number of new types of jobs being generated. The previous year’s focus on analytical jobs is now broader based, with the need for design, usability and financial analysis being the drivers of new job creation.

From a sector perspective, employees in IT, Agriculture and Agrochemicals, FMCG, FMCD, Healthcare & Pharma, Hospitality, Retail and Telecommunications will receive double digit salary hikes. However, companies across Auto and allied industries, BFSI, BPO and IT enabled services, Construction & Real Estate and Power & Energy will remain conservative. With the highest annualized salary growth being a mere 9.28% Automobile & allied industries seems to be the lowest rewarding sector.

The report also highlights that transformative skills (decision making, strategy and planning and business transactional skills (repeat sales, relationship building) will be highly valued skills at a workplace. The unified salary report covers 15 key industry verticals and nine cities. Salaries benchmarked in this document are mostly those pertaining to junior to mid-level profiles.