Good news! According to THIS survey, you could get 9.7% salary hike in 2019

Average salaries in India are projected to increase 9.7 per cent in 2019 from 9.5 per cent in the previous year as per a report on expectations that economic growth in India will accelerate. However, that is still slower than the 12.6% growth in pay raises in 2011, the fastest in the past decade, according to human resource consulting firm Aon's annual salary growth survey. If the report is to be believed, salary hikes have been consistently faster than 10 per cent in the seven years to 2016.

The pace of growth in salary hikes, however, slowed to 9.3 per cent in 2017, as demonetisation in November 2016 and the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST) in the following year hurt business sentiment, as reported by Livemint.

"The salary growth this year is at a three-year high, but in actual terms it's marginally up largely because of two factors: prudent expense management and, second, more differential pay structure based on performance," said Anandorup Ghose, partner and head (emerging markets) at Aon.

While double-digit average salary hikes may not return anytime soon, Ghose said high performers were likely to be rewarded. High performers may get 1.9 times the average pay hike, the survey says.

Workers in the consumer internet and professional services sectors are expected to get more than 11 per cent pay raises this year, the Aon survey has found. In all, five sectors-life sciences, automotive, consumer products and the two cited above-are expected to offer employees double-digit increments in 2019.

The Aon survey also found that employee turnover slowed to 15.8 per cent in 2018 from 18.5 per cent in 2013. At the same time, involuntary attrition has risen to 3.7 per cent in 2018-19 from 3.1 per cent in 2015-16.

The declining attrition rate, Ghose said, could be attributed to slower hiring growth in sectors such as e-commerce, internet, retail and insurance. The advent of automation and a focus on increasing utilisation of employees also led to lower attrition rates, he added.