MANILA - Salaries in the Philippines are projected to rise 6.5 percent in 2017, higher than the 6 percent growth this year, a report from global solutions company Willis Towers Watson showed.
The steady rise in salaries comes as companies in the Philippines are also focusing on incentivizing employees with critical skills, Vangie Daquilanea, data services practice lead at Willis Towers Watson said.
"These can be in the form of a 'hot skills' allowance, retention bonuses and training/education programs that will keep their critical talents engaged," Daquilanea said.
The results of the study released Wednesday revealed that salaries across Asia Pacific are projected to rise 5.9 percent in 2017, up from the 5.8 percent growth this year.
The slight increase reflects broader downward pressure on salary increase budgets in the region, as employers seek to keep costs down amid slowing economic growth, the study said.
"Back around 2012 and 2013, companies in Asia pumped a lot of money into their salary budgets and drove salaries up, but they didn’t see the revenues rise in tandem, so it made such increases unsustainable. Now these companies are being much more prudent," said Sambhav Rakyan, Asia Pacific data services practice leader at Willis Towers Watson.
The highest salary increases in next year will be in Pakistan (10.2 percent), Bangladesh (10 percent) and India (10 percent). Real term-growth will be 5 percent for Pakistan, 4.2 percent for Bangladesh and 4.3 percent for India.
Vietnam will see the highest base salary increases at 9.6 percent in East Asia and South East Asia before inflation is factored in. It is followed by Indonesia (9 percent), and China (7 percent). Japan is projected to have the smallest growth at 2.3 percent.
Hong Kong and Singapore, meanwhile, are set to see similar overall salary growth at 4 percent, but factoring in inflation, salary increases in real terms are set to be much lower in Hong Kong (1.7 percent) than Singapore (3.2 percent).