Around 87 percent of India’s companies intend to hike salaries in 2021, compared to 71 percent in 2020, says a study.

Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm, has released insights from its latest Salary Trends Survey in India. It has analysed data across 1050 companies from more than 20 industries.

According to the study, 61 per cent of companies that have chalked out a salary hike process in 2021 plan to offer increases between 5 per cent and 10 per cent. Whereas in 2020, only 45 per cent increased salaries in the same range.

The highest salary increases are expected in sectors like Hi-Tech, IT, ITes, e-commerce, life science, and professional services.

“This is a special year as business leaders are putting investments in their employees and clients ahead of shareholder return,” said Nitin Sethi, a partner at Aon, and CEO of the firm’s Performance and Rewards Solutions practice in India

He further added that business and HR leaders made hard decisions in the second and third quarters of 2020 and are now betting on the green shoots of improving consumer demand.

Companies in the hospitality, retail, real estate and infrastructure industries, which had given very low increases in 2020, are projecting a higher increase for 2021 but still trail most other sectors.

“We see high differentials in salary increases – both intra and inter-industry. The difference between industries with the highest increase to lowest increase is 7.2 per cent points as compared to mere 2.4 per cent points in 2019,” said Navneet Rattan, Director at Aon in India’s Performance and Rewards Solutions practice.