Projected wage increases in India remain the highest in the entire Asia-Pacific region, with markets such as Vietnam (7.6%), Indonesia (6.5%), Philippines (5.6%), China (5%) and Thailand (5%). ) is also willing to maintain a strong salary increase for next year.
Wage increases in industries such as pharmaceuticals (10%), manufacturing (9.9%), insurance (9.7%), captive and shared services and outsourcing sectors (9.7%) are likely and retail trade (9.6%) are above the general industry salary. 9.5% median by 2025, while 9% enterprise software and services are projected below the overall industry median.
About 46% of Indian companies expect their 2025 pay rise budgets to be similar to those in 2024, while 28% say the budgets are likely to be lower than projected. About 12% said there would be no changes while the rest are still undecided or unsure.
Concerns related to cost management (41.7%), inflationary pressures (37.5%), anticipated recession (33.3%) and a tighter labor market (31.3%) are the main factors that influence budget projections for 2025.
In terms of hiring, almost 28% of companies said that as of June they plan to add staff in the next 12 months, while 68% of companies will maintain their staff compared to the previous year. Indian volunteer dropout rate remains one of the highest in the region, although it has fallen slightly from 11% in 2023 to 10.8% in 2024. “While Indian companies are optimistic about growth, they are balancing optimism with caution. The era of the ‘Great Resignation’ is behind us, both employers and employees are now looking for stability and market sentiment is noticeably more stable,” Rajul Mathur, Work and Rewards Consulting Leader, WTW India, said in a statement. The survey found that that variable payments are expected to remain constant at 12.5% in 2025, compared to 12.6% in 2024. As organizations prioritize performance, they allocate larger portions of their variable salary budgets to top and above-average performing employees, ensuring talent is recognized and rewarded appropriately.
“Organizations are putting more emphasis on performance based salary differentiation. “This trend has top performers potentially getting three times the pay increases of average employees, while above-average performers are expected to receive about 1.2 times the increase of an average employee,” said Mathur. .
The Salary Budget Planning Report is compiled by WTW’s Rewards Data Intelligence practice. The survey was conducted in April and June 2024. Approximately 32,000 responses were received from companies in 168 countries around the world. The survey had 709 participants from India.
Projected and actual salary increase for companies in India
| Year | Projected salary increase |
Real salary increase |
| 2025 | 9.5% | – |
| 2024 | 9.8% | 9.5% |
| 2023 | 9.8% | 10.0% |
| 2022 | 9.3% | 9.8% |
| 2021 | 7.0% | 8.5% |
Source: WTW Salary Budget Planning Survey Report 2024 – India
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