Last year, souring food / oil prices & subsequent collapse of the stock markets all across the globe had pushed the entire world in a state of deep recession. Almost every Indian was badly shaken & moved into a state of great pessimism. The impact of the global slowdown had been tremendous on the IT sector witnessing large scale headcount culling or freezing of wages.

There is a Good News !!!!!! - for the all especially the IT Sector guys. There is a prediction by a couple of eminent HR consultants of global repute, through their recently conducted survey, that there is likelihood of single digit salary raise sop in India this year.

We feel that even a single digit pay rise is a better sop for an employee living under the fear of pink slipping otherwise.

Going by the predictions by Hewitt Associates, Hay Group and Watson Wyatt, this year, the employees in India can expect an average salary raise by 8.2%, 7.25% and 7% resp. as compared to a much lower single digit pay rise elsewhere.

According to the predictions by Hay Group, UK might be the lowest in average pay raise by a meager 1%, while US & Europe can follow by a marginally better score of 2%.

Similar survey by Hewitt predicts a better score of 3.2% pay rise in the US, 3.5% for Australia and 3.8% for Singapore.

The surveys not only covered the IT sector, but covered variety of sectors like FMCG, Insurance, Healthcare, Pharma, Consumer Durables, Security Services etc. Majorities of the companies in such sectors are initiating measures to boost up the morale of their employees through pay rise in the bracket of a double digit or so. In-spite of recession, many big & reputed companies have come out with encouraging quarterly balance sheets, which has acted as a great catalyst to such a move to provide sops to their employees.

Some of the FMCG & Telecom companies are expected to offer average pay rise by around 10% in addition to attractive bonuses this year. Top performers can expect something between 15 to 20 %. Of course these pay raises can’t be compared to the great escalations seen during the time of boom, still it is going to be a matter of great pleasure for all concerned.

After the 26/11 episode, everyone across the globe started realizing the importance of security. As such the security sector in our country has shown an average growth of 25%. Thus security sector companies are also likely to motivate their employees through big pay raise including attractive bonuses.

Fresh large-scale recruitment can be seen across the Healthcare sector, being quite conscious of the importance of Quality Personnel & not compromising with some short-term economic jolts.

Maruti Suzuki has beaten all previous records by registering the highest sale during the year 2008-09. Thus going by the past records, its employees can expect hefty reward this year, may be beating their past records.

Although anticipated salary raises during 2009 for all job categories shall be falling by around 3% all across the globe, sops shall be coming to Indians due to the recovery of economic situation in the country.

The economic recession has forced the companies to have a break & plan more strategic approach towards their appraisal system. Now the time of lenient appraisal system has gone, as slightest inefficiency & lack of performance is certainly not going to be digested by any company any more.

Although this is a good news, it is not the time for relaxing either. All employees need to be introspective & watchful of their performance & must draw their fast track action plan to improve their skill levels & try to develop a multi-tasking personality.