Increasing voluntary turnovers force tech firms' salary increases

The voluntary turnover rate of 12% broke through the 10% retention programme threshold.

Singapore technology firms are spending more on hiring and salaries as annual turnover rates have gone beyond the threshold for retention programmes, professional services firm Aon revealed.

According to the Radford Global Technology Survey, median voluntary turnover at technology firms in Singapore currently sits at 12.7%, above the 10% threshold where companies typically begin to consider special retention programmes.

"It is therefore not a surprise that companies in Singapore are increasing salary budgets heading into 2018," Aon said.

The firm reported that 6.4% of companies in Singapore are already pursuing aggressive hiring plans, albeit this figure is still lower than those in other Asia Pacific countries.

Currently, firms have upped median overall salary increase Budgets by 4% in 2017. Aon projects this could rise to 4.1% in 2018.

The hot jobs at technology sector companies in Singapore, defined as those jobs that have seen the highest annual increases in market median base salaries over the past three years, include IT Support Specialist, Software QA Engineer, and Product Marketing Engineer.

"Singapore is not immune to the larger talent and rewards trends observed across Asia-Pacific," Aon said.